POYI Bamana jeli music Mali and the blues

Lucy Duraacuten

Department of the Languages and Cultures of Africa SOAS London UK

(Received 2 April 2013 final version received 2 April 2013)

The search for the African roots of the blues has long been a subject of fascination to writersscholars and musicians with Mali taking an increasingly central role in the popular imaginationas the missing link in the bluesrsquo DNA Many Malian artists have found their music beinglabelled by journalists and record companies with such tags as lsquoMali Bluesrsquo lsquoDesert Bluesrsquoand lsquoBambara Bluesrsquo in recognition of the strong stylistic similarities with the Delta Bluesin particular But which way around did the influences travel A crucial piece to the puzzleis a Bamana jeli (griot) song called lsquoPoyirsquo which according to oral tradition may havebeen the last tune that war captives of the empire of Segu (1712ndash1861) heard before beingtaken into slavery

This article explores the complex trajectory of the trans-Atlantic conversations between theblues and Mali by focusing on one musical tradition that has so far been ignored in scholarlystudies of both blues and Mande music ndash that of the Bamana (lsquoBambararsquo) griots from Segu inthe middle Niger valley with their trademark lute the ngoacuteniba Drawing both on extensiveacademic research carried out on Mande music and on long practical experience of workingas music producer of Mande artists it argues that Bamana music could well be a strongcontender for the lsquoroots of the bluesrsquo

Keywords Malian blues Mande music roots of the blues

Introduction

On a late afternoon in February 2006 in Garana a village deep in the countryside of Segou1 pro-vince (Mali) a local crowd was gathered in the courtyard of a family of Bamana jeliw (hereditarymusicians or lsquogriotsrsquo of the Bamana people2) They were hosting some festivities to welcome arenowned marabout (Muslim cleric) to the village Seated in the centre of the courtyard wasthe head of the jeli household the veteran female singer Yakareacute Damba together with severalof her sons ranging in age from their 20s to late 40s All were exceptionally talented performersof the ngograveni a West African lute with a wooden resonator and skin sound table Around theimposing figure of the matriarch were many of her grandchildren some barely old enough towalk some in their late teens ndash all budding singers dancers and drummers in this intenselymusical family

Yakareacutersquos son Bassekou Kouyateacute was the familyrsquos most celebrated artist He had been touringand recording with some of Malirsquos most prominent musicians since the early 1990s and wasknown for his innovative approach to the centuriesrsquo old music of the Bamana griots withwhich he had grown up3 One such innovation was to attach the ngograveni to a strap slung aroundhis shoulder guitar style ndash which was how he was holding the instrument that day By contrasthis elder brother Modibo Kouyateacute played in the more traditional way seated on the ground hisright leg hooked over the ngograveni (see Figures 1 and 2) The two had been raised together in Garana

copy 2013 Journal of African Cultural Studies

Email ldsoasacuk

Journal of African Cultural Studies 2013httpdxdoiorg101080136968152013792725

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(along with 11 other brothers and sisters) but Modibo stayed in the village while Bassekoumoved to Bamako in his late teens

Garana lies in the heart of the historical region known as Dograve In the epic tradition of the Mandejeliw the Mande Empire was founded by Sunjata Keita in c 1235 and his mother Sogolon Konewas from Dograve Just 2 km away from Garana at the top of a small hill in the middle of an arable

Figure 2 Bassekou Kouyateacute on stage with his band in Lisbon 2007 One of his first performances with hisband Ngoniba following the release of their first album Segu Blue Note the straps that hold the instrumentsSource AQ67

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Figure 1 Modibo Kouyateacute older brother of Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba His daughter BintouKouyateacute a budding singer sits with him at home in Garana Segou province 2008Source Photo by Thomas Dorn by permission

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field is the supposed grave of Sunjata Keitarsquos aunt Dograve Kamissa the lsquobuffalo womanrsquo This little-known and rarely visited spot plays a significant role in the imaginary of Bamana jeliw as it wasfrom her lineage that Sunjata was believed to have derived his esoteric strength with which he ledthe Mande to power4 (See Figure 3) AQ1

Like many of the surrounding villages in this part of Mali the middle Niger valley Garana hasa mixed population consisting of four main ethnicities ndash the Bamana who are the farmers theFulbe who are the pastoralists the Bozo who are the fishermen and the Soninke who are the mer-chants and Muslim clerics along with the Jokarame (a sedentary branch of the Fulbe) For thedayrsquos festivities each one of these had provided their own drummers and singers to representtheir communities and to entertain the crowd Megaphones connected to a rudimentary soundsystem had been mounted around the courtyard blaring out the music When the drummingand dancing finished the village schoolteacher gave a formal welcome speech Then it wastime for the Kouyateacute family to perform the songs for which they were known throughout theregion Bamana jeli (griot) music Most of their repertoire dates from the time of the SeguEmpire (c 1712ndash1861)5 (Figure 4)

Bamana jeli music shares some elements with other better known and more studied forms ofMande music6 but it has also many features that set it apart The repertoire is made up of anumber of songs that tell the stories of Segursquos rulers and warriors typically accompanied onthe ngograveniba a large four-string version of the lute the preferred instrument of Segursquos rulers(as described later on in this article) The songs are characterized by pentatonic scales 68rhythm and slow tempo Combined with the timbre of the ngograveni derived from fingering tech-niques that include slides pulls hammers and vibrato on the strings7 Bamana jeli music is attimes heavily redolent of the blues

One piece in particular lsquoPoyirsquo stood out that day as a blues lsquodead ringerrsquo ndash especially the wayit was played by Bassekou Kouyateacute I was in Garana at the time researching the Bamana reper-toire for a recording project with Bassekou8 I was already familiar with several of the best-knownBamana songs such as lsquoDa Monzonrsquo and lsquoBakari Janrsquo but lsquoPoyirsquo was new to me Perhaps I had

Figure 3 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the spot marking the supposed grave of Dograve Kamissa (the buffalo woman)aunt of Sunjata Keita who founded the Mali Empire in 1235Source Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

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heard lsquoPoyirsquo before but had failed to recognize it since it is more of a template accompanimentthan a specific song much in the way that the blues is While his older brother Modibo played aslow two-bar melody in 68 time on the large ngograveniba Bassekou gradually added variations on asmaller ngograveni some of which sounded distinctly bluesy at times reminiscent of the kinds of guitarriffs one might hear on a John Lee Hooker track9

That evening when the festivities were over I asked the two brothers to tell me more aboutlsquoPoyirsquo Bassekou explained that it was an old very traditional piece which had several regionalvariants He had taken his fatherrsquos version and modified it in his own way ndash a common enoughprocess by which Mande jeli pieces evolve through time and the oral tradition Bassekoursquos way ofplaying lsquoPoyirsquo reflected his contact with blues musicians on stages and in studios around theworld Nevertheless his upbringing in a remote village as the son of a knowledgeable and distin-guished jeli family had provided him with a solid grounding in local oral narrative

From Bassekoursquos description it emerged that unlike most of the Mande jeli repertoire lsquoPoyirsquois not connected with any one historical person or song10 Instead it is an accompaniment overwhich male jeliw would improvise spoken praises for those who have demonstrated great braveryand strength It could also be played as an instrumental which is unusual in the Mande repertoirelsquoPoyirsquo added Modibo (who had never heard of the blues) was a term to signify bravery on thebattlefield at the time of the Segu Empire It was the tune to which nobles swore an oath It alsohad grim associations with the battlefield

Poyi is the original Bamana blues Wewere taught it by our father Moustapha Kouyateacute whowas a greatngograveni player and his father before him He never even heard of the blues but when he played Poyi itwas the bluesPoyimeans to kill people it means to shed blood It was considered better to capture youropponent alive than to kill himWould they ever come back alive to their homes and family ndash or wouldthey lie dead in the battlefield food for vultures or be captured and enslaved

Figure 4 Modibo Kouyateacute playing the ngograveniba through a small amplifier surrounded by his family hismother the singer Yakareacute Damba (wearing an orange and green scarf) and his sister Oumou Kouyateacute (farright)Source Garana (2006)

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After the battle all those captured alive had to line up and the jeli would play PoyihellipOne after theother each would be asked lsquodo you want to go into slaveryrsquo If he says yes he passes out of the lineand he belongs to his captor If he says no he has to stand still and his head is chopped off (BassekouKouyateacute Personal communication Garana 2006 AQ2)

There is plenty of gore in the Bamana epic tradition (see for example the vivid description of abloody massacre by hatchetmen of Bamana elders after the death of Monzon Conrad 1999 186ndash187) Yet the Kouyateacute brothersrsquo account of how lsquoPoyirsquo was linked to the precise moment whencaptured warriors had to choose between shameful life in slavery or honour in death11 openedup new perspectives on the so-far undocumented connections between the blues and Bamanamusic It raised the question how significant was the context in which such music was playedif it was the last piece to be played to warriors before they went to battle What effect wouldsuch an association with warfare bloodshed and indeed esoteric power have on the minds of cap-tives some of whom might have been shipped across the Atlantic

This article attempts to address some of these questions A major part of the discussion isdevoted to a long-overdue ethnography of Bamana jeli music giving descriptions of its historicaland cultural context its musical and lyrical features its main instrument the ngograveniba and itsrepertoires in order to better assess their place in the quest for the roots of the blues Thearticle draws on extensive research conducted by the author with Mande jeliw over many yearsin Mali The family of Bassekou Kouyateacute in Garana who represent an old and authoritativeoral tradition have been a particularly important source of information on the Bamana repertoirebut many other musicians have also been consulted on the topic in both Segou and Bamako and inthe diaspora12

The discussion ends with a focus on lsquoPoyirsquo a tune that has been little reported and for whichthere are few recordings Yet there is enough evidence from oral tradition documentary literatureand a few extant recordings to suggest that it was once a powerful signifier of core Bamana valuesAli Farka Toureacute the leading figure in Malirsquos lsquodesert bluesrsquo cited lsquoPoyirsquo as a kind of proto-blues lsquoIhave always said the word blues has no significance here in Africahellip if therersquos a need for a labeltherersquos no reason why the Americans shouldnrsquot call it the blues But if I sayhellip Seygalare orNdoondo or Mbowdi or Poyi Everyone here knows what that isrsquo13

Writing about uprooted populations on the borderlands of South Africa Mozambique andSwaziland Angela Impey observes that lsquosound song and the effect of music-making representa much under-utilised historical research resource particularly in contexts of spatial and socialrupturersquo (Impey 2008 33) lsquoPoyirsquo may well be such a resource a piece of musical archaeologysurviving in the oral tradition which has a bearing on the story of Mali and the blues

The quest for specific African sources of African-American musical genres is highly proble-matic (see Kubik 1999 22ndash23) In a 2007 interview for the American radio programme AfropopWorldwide Kubik whose book Africa and the Blues (1999) is the most comprehensive study todate emphasized the futility of looking for African roots of the blues

In African and African-American history as elsewhere in the world we have to operate from sourceswritten sources oral sources recorded sources if possible archaeological sources Where there are nosources there can be no safe conclusions lsquoRootsrsquo is too vague to be used beyond casual statementsthat such and such tradition is based on something somewhere For example all the talk about roots ofthe blues in Mali is just enough to satisfy the publicrsquos need for wild imagination But we want to knowwhich traditions by whom in Mali or elsewhere and in which time period ndash late 18th century ndash wererelevant as a background for the rise of blues in the US a century later Popular formulations such aslsquoFrom Mali to Mississippirsquo are anathema to historical studies(Gerhard Kubik interview with Banning Eyre on Afropop Worldwide 2007 AQ3 PBS radio)14

In an attempt to move beyond the publicrsquos lsquowild imaginationrsquo this article seeks to provide someanswers to Kubikrsquos three questions as follows

Journal of African Cultural Studies 5

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(1) lsquowhich traditionsrsquo This article argues that Bamana jeli music is one tradition that has sofar been overlooked as a music which might well have fed into the early rural blues andbefore that slave banjo music Bamana music belongs to a wider regional style in centralMali overlapping with other neighbouring cultures such as those of the Fulbe andSoninke but it may have been the conduit by which such musical traits crossed the Atlan-tic with the slave trade

(2) lsquoplayed by whom in Malirsquo I suggest that the answer to this is the Bamana jeliw with tunessuch as lsquoPoyirsquo

(3) lsquoduring which time periodrsquo This question can be answered at a broad level by citing theBamana Segu Empire during the eighteenth century a time of intensive slave trade towhich the empire certainly contributed Not only did the Bamana Segu Empire thriveon slavery but it was ruled by former war captives (the Diarra lineage) from 1766 to1861 (Conrad 1990) But perhaps we can further narrow down the lsquowhich timersquo questionand even suggest a likely specific context in which this possible root of the blues wouldhave been played that is precisely around the many battles that were an intrinsic featureof life in Bamana Segu and that engendered vast numbers of slaves some of whom weresent across the Atlantic

While the epic recitations by Bamana jeliw with their vivid stories of Segursquos rulers ( faamaw) havebeen well documented from the point of view of their texts (Kesteloot Courlander DumestreConrad AQ68) the music which is equally steeped in the history and ethos of the region has stillnot been researched Bamana music is not included in Charryrsquos otherwise comprehensive studyof Mande music which focuses on Maninka and Mandinka traditions though he does acknowl-edge that lsquothe reign of the Bamana of Segu in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is animportant source of pieces for Malian musiciansrsquo (Charry 2000a 150) In addition there arevery few internationally available recordings either of Bamana music or of the ngograveniba its emble-matic instrument This general lack of source material no doubt explains why Bamana music hasbeen omitted in studies of the possible African antecedents of the blues It is only mentioned verybriefly in Kubikrsquos book Africa and the Blues (1999) which betrays a general lack of informationabout the styles from the middle Niger valley Yet Kubikrsquos instinct is to look for clues in preciselythis region referring to the music of Malirsquos griots as one lsquolikely candidate for early models thatwere still remembered by African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuryeventually becoming a factor in the development of the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 46) Kubik asks lsquohowsuch a ldquomemoryrdquo could have survived until the end of the nineteenth centuryrsquo (Kubik 1999 46italics in original) postulating that lsquowe are at least eighty years too late for reconstructing proto-blues forms On the other handrsquo he adds lsquothe absence of written sources testifying to suchmemory does not present a puzzlersquo (Kubik 1999 46)

lsquoPoyirsquo is perhaps one piece of that puzzle of memory and musical survival ndash from the otherside of the Atlantic (Figure 5)

The search for the roots of the blues

The search for the African roots of the blues has long been a subject of fascination to blues andAfrican music scholars (Charters Oliver Evans Kubik Coolen AQ69) as well as to American musi-cians of all sorts from blues and jazz to banjo players (too numerous to mention here) andmost recently film makers (for example Scorsesersquos Feel Like Going Home 2003 AQ4)

The Malian singer and guitarist Ali Farka Toureacute was the first to draw international awarenessto the similarities between traditional genres of Malirsquos northern desert and the blues resulting inthe label lsquodesert bluesrsquo coined in the early 1990s His Grammy-winning album Talkinrsquo Timbuktu

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Figure 5 (a) Map of Mali showing Segou province Malirsquos fourth regionSource httpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileUn-malipng (b) Map of Segou region Garana is 2 kmeast of TamaniSource Macdonald et al (2011)

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in which he collaborated with American guitarist Ry Cooder captured the public imagination andwon him the epithet lsquoking of the desert bluesrsquo Toureacute himself rejected such descriptions howeverHe refuted the influence of the blues on his music claiming that it was the other way around Infact the excessive interest of Western journalists in his blues connection irritated Toureacute He wouldoften joke that for him blues meant doctors because doctors in Mali wore a blue uniform (per-sonal communication Nick Gold 2012 AQ5)

Toureacute was a farmer and not a griot ndash a guitarist and singer whose connection with music camefrom his grandmother Kounandi Samba a medium of the river spirits (Gibbal 1994 AQ6 68 Duraacuten1996) He was inspired by the ngograveni among other traditional instruments of the Niger valley andindeed his early recordings often featured the ngograveni or similar lutes played by griots from otherethnicities such as gambare played by Barou Sambarou a Soninke and the hoddu played byNassourou Sareacute a Fulani

Kubik who dedicates a large part of his Chapter 12 lsquoReturn to the western Sudanrsquo to a dis-cussion of Toureacute finds his music lsquoonly vaguely related to any type of bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 194)and questions whether Toureacutersquos lsquopersonal synthesis could be used to confirm pre-twentieth centuryhistorical connections [with the blues]rsquo (Kubik 1999 196) I would argue that there is only oneway of doing so which is to look at the local styles and songs that inspired him rather than seeingit as a lsquoblues derivativersquo15 Toureacute drew on a number of Malian styles his favourites were the onesfrom his region the bend of the Niger and the middle Niger valley

Some decades before Toureacute put Mali on the musical map of the blues Senegambia (particu-larly Wolof music) was considered a primary source of the blues first suggested by David Ames(Ames 1955) This argument was developed by Oliver in his pioneering book Savannah Synco-pators (1970 43ndash50) and then echoed by Charters (1974 AQ7 1981) Coolen (1982 1984 1991) andothers As Kubik points out the enormous success of Alex Haleyrsquos book and TV series Roots inthe late 1970s and early 1980s which places the Gambia at the centre of the story certainly stimu-lated the African-American imagination (Kubik 1999 188) Senegambia was an important sourceof plantation slaves in the Deep South (Coolen 1991) There are undeniable resemblancesbetween blues guitar fingering styles and the thumb and finger interlocked plucking techniqueson the Mandinka kora (Charry 2000a 178ndash189) Banjo enthusiasts have also put forwardother Senegambian string instruments such as the Jola long-necked lute called akonting as poss-ible antecedents to the blues16 and this connection has been explored most recently by the workof such banjo players as Bela Fleck on his 2010 Grammy awarded album Throw Down YourHeart

The lack of research on music from the middle Niger valley has however resulted in toonarrow a focus on particular regional traditions of savannah West Africa without settingthem in the wider context For example Coolen suggests the fodet a term used by Wolofxalam players for both tunings and generic accompaniments as a kind of template for theblues While not wrong fodet as a musical concept cannot be attributed solely to the Wolofsince similar concepts are shared by griots of neighbouring peoples all the way across themiddle Niger valley Also there is much oral evidence to show that many Wolof xalamkatstrace their ancestry to the Manden (the heartland of Mande culture in present-day westernMali and eastern Guinea) and a good part of their repertoire consists of well-known Mandejeli tunes like lsquoManga Yirarsquo lsquoAlfa Yayarsquo lsquoTutu Jararsquo and lsquoSunjatarsquo they even sing some ofthe choruses in Maninka not in their own language Wolof (see Charry 2000 AQ8

para 164 Duran

1981a)Kubik is sceptical about arguments for the Senegambia and instead gives

stronger weight to the central Sudanic region as one core area of provenance of some of the ruralbluesrsquo most characteristic traits the region from Mali across northern Ghana and northern Nigeriainto northern and central Cameroon rather than the westernmost geographical Sudan (Senegal

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The Gambia) Other possible core areas include northern Guinea and the Sahel zone from Mali intoMauritania (Kubik 1999 69ndash70)

It is well documented that captives from Segu were sent across the Atlantic though not in largenumbers

Curtin estimated that 80 percent of the total slave exports to the NewWorld were transported between1710 and 1850 or roughly during the entire era of the Segu Bambara state Slaves from Segu destinedfor the Atlantic trade were probably sent to Senegambia and Sierra Leone Slaves from these tworegions accounted for only 10ndash15 percent of the total slave exports from 1701 to 1867 andBambara slaves constituted only a fraction of this total (Roberts 1987 17ndash18)

The Scots explorer Mungo Park attests to the common practice of slavery in his account of histravels through the Mande countryside in 1796 His Chapter 22 is an interesting first-handaccount of the various ways in which people became slaves mainly warfare but also insolvencyIn his diary entry for 18 July 1796 he writes lsquoI was met by a coffle of slaves about seventy innumber coming from Sego [sic]rsquo (Park 17971983 AQ9) There are numerous other sightings ofslaves throughout his travels

This is significant because as Kubik mentions lsquothe story of the Bambara rice cultivatorsbrought to Louisiana specifically for their technological expertize AQ70

para has opened up new

aspects of the fine meshes and economics of the slave trade and its huge networks into theinterior of the west central Sudanrsquo (Kubik 1999 70) Carneyrsquos rich study of what she metaphori-cally calls lsquoblack ricersquo shows that rice cultivation in the Western hemisphere was indeed intro-duced by Bamana slaves ndash mainly women who to this day are the principal rice cultivators ofthe region ndash and lsquodepended upon the diffusion of an entire cultural system from production toconsumptionrsquo (Carney 2001 165) Bamana slaves were lsquocentral to understanding Louisianahistoryrsquo (Eltis Morgan and Richardson 2007 1332) The banjo derived from WestAfrican lutes such as the ngograveni was one of the main instruments of Louisiana slaves(Conway 1995 59 AQ10

para)

In Kubikrsquos chapter entitled lsquoWhy did a west central Sudanic style cluster prevail in the bluesrsquohe points on the one hand to the numbers of slaves to the New World from this region during theeighteenth century

Senegal was part of the French slave trading network to Louisiana Eventually in the 19th centurysome of the descendants of deportees from Senegal Guinea and Mali ended up on farms in Missis-sippi and elsewhere in the Deep Southhellip the names of ethnic groups from the geographical Sudan (asfrom other parts of Africa) were well remembered in new Orleans into the nineteenth century thoughsometimes in the form of an interesting phonetic transfer into French For example Fulbe or lsquoFularsquobecame lsquopoulardrsquo (fat chicken) (Kubik 1999 96)

On the other hand Kubik comments that lsquoin a group of people thrown together by the hazards oflife even one person is enough to transmit esoteric knowledge that might later become theproperty of a majorityhellip in culture contact situations it often happens that minorities winrsquo(Kubik 1999 98) Applying that argument to a piece of music rather than a person onecould argue the case for lsquoPoyirsquo being recreated among slave communities in the Deep Southor at very least providing some key musical features that contributed to the foundation ofthe blues

Rather than either Old World folkways or New World environments we need to encompass both andbecome much more thoroughly Atlantichellip rather than frame the issue as solely one of transfers andconduits we should also think of transformations and overlapping circuits (Eltis Morgan andRichardson 2007 1332)

Here I am not arguing that Bamana jeli music was directly transplanted via the slave trade to theDeep South but that aspects of it stayed in the memory there during the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies though perhaps relived in lsquothoroughly Atlanticrsquo ways (Figure 6)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 9

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lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

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aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

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490

495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

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Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

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540

The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

545

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575

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585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

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One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

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825

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835

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845

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855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

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920

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930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

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1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

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1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

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where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

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Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

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1395

(along with 11 other brothers and sisters) but Modibo stayed in the village while Bassekoumoved to Bamako in his late teens

Garana lies in the heart of the historical region known as Dograve In the epic tradition of the Mandejeliw the Mande Empire was founded by Sunjata Keita in c 1235 and his mother Sogolon Konewas from Dograve Just 2 km away from Garana at the top of a small hill in the middle of an arable

Figure 2 Bassekou Kouyateacute on stage with his band in Lisbon 2007 One of his first performances with hisband Ngoniba following the release of their first album Segu Blue Note the straps that hold the instrumentsSource AQ67

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inprint

Figure 1 Modibo Kouyateacute older brother of Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba His daughter BintouKouyateacute a budding singer sits with him at home in Garana Segou province 2008Source Photo by Thomas Dorn by permission

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90

field is the supposed grave of Sunjata Keitarsquos aunt Dograve Kamissa the lsquobuffalo womanrsquo This little-known and rarely visited spot plays a significant role in the imaginary of Bamana jeliw as it wasfrom her lineage that Sunjata was believed to have derived his esoteric strength with which he ledthe Mande to power4 (See Figure 3) AQ1

Like many of the surrounding villages in this part of Mali the middle Niger valley Garana hasa mixed population consisting of four main ethnicities ndash the Bamana who are the farmers theFulbe who are the pastoralists the Bozo who are the fishermen and the Soninke who are the mer-chants and Muslim clerics along with the Jokarame (a sedentary branch of the Fulbe) For thedayrsquos festivities each one of these had provided their own drummers and singers to representtheir communities and to entertain the crowd Megaphones connected to a rudimentary soundsystem had been mounted around the courtyard blaring out the music When the drummingand dancing finished the village schoolteacher gave a formal welcome speech Then it wastime for the Kouyateacute family to perform the songs for which they were known throughout theregion Bamana jeli (griot) music Most of their repertoire dates from the time of the SeguEmpire (c 1712ndash1861)5 (Figure 4)

Bamana jeli music shares some elements with other better known and more studied forms ofMande music6 but it has also many features that set it apart The repertoire is made up of anumber of songs that tell the stories of Segursquos rulers and warriors typically accompanied onthe ngograveniba a large four-string version of the lute the preferred instrument of Segursquos rulers(as described later on in this article) The songs are characterized by pentatonic scales 68rhythm and slow tempo Combined with the timbre of the ngograveni derived from fingering tech-niques that include slides pulls hammers and vibrato on the strings7 Bamana jeli music is attimes heavily redolent of the blues

One piece in particular lsquoPoyirsquo stood out that day as a blues lsquodead ringerrsquo ndash especially the wayit was played by Bassekou Kouyateacute I was in Garana at the time researching the Bamana reper-toire for a recording project with Bassekou8 I was already familiar with several of the best-knownBamana songs such as lsquoDa Monzonrsquo and lsquoBakari Janrsquo but lsquoPoyirsquo was new to me Perhaps I had

Figure 3 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the spot marking the supposed grave of Dograve Kamissa (the buffalo woman)aunt of Sunjata Keita who founded the Mali Empire in 1235Source Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 3

95

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105

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115

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125

130

135

heard lsquoPoyirsquo before but had failed to recognize it since it is more of a template accompanimentthan a specific song much in the way that the blues is While his older brother Modibo played aslow two-bar melody in 68 time on the large ngograveniba Bassekou gradually added variations on asmaller ngograveni some of which sounded distinctly bluesy at times reminiscent of the kinds of guitarriffs one might hear on a John Lee Hooker track9

That evening when the festivities were over I asked the two brothers to tell me more aboutlsquoPoyirsquo Bassekou explained that it was an old very traditional piece which had several regionalvariants He had taken his fatherrsquos version and modified it in his own way ndash a common enoughprocess by which Mande jeli pieces evolve through time and the oral tradition Bassekoursquos way ofplaying lsquoPoyirsquo reflected his contact with blues musicians on stages and in studios around theworld Nevertheless his upbringing in a remote village as the son of a knowledgeable and distin-guished jeli family had provided him with a solid grounding in local oral narrative

From Bassekoursquos description it emerged that unlike most of the Mande jeli repertoire lsquoPoyirsquois not connected with any one historical person or song10 Instead it is an accompaniment overwhich male jeliw would improvise spoken praises for those who have demonstrated great braveryand strength It could also be played as an instrumental which is unusual in the Mande repertoirelsquoPoyirsquo added Modibo (who had never heard of the blues) was a term to signify bravery on thebattlefield at the time of the Segu Empire It was the tune to which nobles swore an oath It alsohad grim associations with the battlefield

Poyi is the original Bamana blues Wewere taught it by our father Moustapha Kouyateacute whowas a greatngograveni player and his father before him He never even heard of the blues but when he played Poyi itwas the bluesPoyimeans to kill people it means to shed blood It was considered better to capture youropponent alive than to kill himWould they ever come back alive to their homes and family ndash or wouldthey lie dead in the battlefield food for vultures or be captured and enslaved

Figure 4 Modibo Kouyateacute playing the ngograveniba through a small amplifier surrounded by his family hismother the singer Yakareacute Damba (wearing an orange and green scarf) and his sister Oumou Kouyateacute (farright)Source Garana (2006)

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After the battle all those captured alive had to line up and the jeli would play PoyihellipOne after theother each would be asked lsquodo you want to go into slaveryrsquo If he says yes he passes out of the lineand he belongs to his captor If he says no he has to stand still and his head is chopped off (BassekouKouyateacute Personal communication Garana 2006 AQ2)

There is plenty of gore in the Bamana epic tradition (see for example the vivid description of abloody massacre by hatchetmen of Bamana elders after the death of Monzon Conrad 1999 186ndash187) Yet the Kouyateacute brothersrsquo account of how lsquoPoyirsquo was linked to the precise moment whencaptured warriors had to choose between shameful life in slavery or honour in death11 openedup new perspectives on the so-far undocumented connections between the blues and Bamanamusic It raised the question how significant was the context in which such music was playedif it was the last piece to be played to warriors before they went to battle What effect wouldsuch an association with warfare bloodshed and indeed esoteric power have on the minds of cap-tives some of whom might have been shipped across the Atlantic

This article attempts to address some of these questions A major part of the discussion isdevoted to a long-overdue ethnography of Bamana jeli music giving descriptions of its historicaland cultural context its musical and lyrical features its main instrument the ngograveniba and itsrepertoires in order to better assess their place in the quest for the roots of the blues Thearticle draws on extensive research conducted by the author with Mande jeliw over many yearsin Mali The family of Bassekou Kouyateacute in Garana who represent an old and authoritativeoral tradition have been a particularly important source of information on the Bamana repertoirebut many other musicians have also been consulted on the topic in both Segou and Bamako and inthe diaspora12

The discussion ends with a focus on lsquoPoyirsquo a tune that has been little reported and for whichthere are few recordings Yet there is enough evidence from oral tradition documentary literatureand a few extant recordings to suggest that it was once a powerful signifier of core Bamana valuesAli Farka Toureacute the leading figure in Malirsquos lsquodesert bluesrsquo cited lsquoPoyirsquo as a kind of proto-blues lsquoIhave always said the word blues has no significance here in Africahellip if therersquos a need for a labeltherersquos no reason why the Americans shouldnrsquot call it the blues But if I sayhellip Seygalare orNdoondo or Mbowdi or Poyi Everyone here knows what that isrsquo13

Writing about uprooted populations on the borderlands of South Africa Mozambique andSwaziland Angela Impey observes that lsquosound song and the effect of music-making representa much under-utilised historical research resource particularly in contexts of spatial and socialrupturersquo (Impey 2008 33) lsquoPoyirsquo may well be such a resource a piece of musical archaeologysurviving in the oral tradition which has a bearing on the story of Mali and the blues

The quest for specific African sources of African-American musical genres is highly proble-matic (see Kubik 1999 22ndash23) In a 2007 interview for the American radio programme AfropopWorldwide Kubik whose book Africa and the Blues (1999) is the most comprehensive study todate emphasized the futility of looking for African roots of the blues

In African and African-American history as elsewhere in the world we have to operate from sourceswritten sources oral sources recorded sources if possible archaeological sources Where there are nosources there can be no safe conclusions lsquoRootsrsquo is too vague to be used beyond casual statementsthat such and such tradition is based on something somewhere For example all the talk about roots ofthe blues in Mali is just enough to satisfy the publicrsquos need for wild imagination But we want to knowwhich traditions by whom in Mali or elsewhere and in which time period ndash late 18th century ndash wererelevant as a background for the rise of blues in the US a century later Popular formulations such aslsquoFrom Mali to Mississippirsquo are anathema to historical studies(Gerhard Kubik interview with Banning Eyre on Afropop Worldwide 2007 AQ3 PBS radio)14

In an attempt to move beyond the publicrsquos lsquowild imaginationrsquo this article seeks to provide someanswers to Kubikrsquos three questions as follows

Journal of African Cultural Studies 5

185

190

195

200

205

210

215

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225

(1) lsquowhich traditionsrsquo This article argues that Bamana jeli music is one tradition that has sofar been overlooked as a music which might well have fed into the early rural blues andbefore that slave banjo music Bamana music belongs to a wider regional style in centralMali overlapping with other neighbouring cultures such as those of the Fulbe andSoninke but it may have been the conduit by which such musical traits crossed the Atlan-tic with the slave trade

(2) lsquoplayed by whom in Malirsquo I suggest that the answer to this is the Bamana jeliw with tunessuch as lsquoPoyirsquo

(3) lsquoduring which time periodrsquo This question can be answered at a broad level by citing theBamana Segu Empire during the eighteenth century a time of intensive slave trade towhich the empire certainly contributed Not only did the Bamana Segu Empire thriveon slavery but it was ruled by former war captives (the Diarra lineage) from 1766 to1861 (Conrad 1990) But perhaps we can further narrow down the lsquowhich timersquo questionand even suggest a likely specific context in which this possible root of the blues wouldhave been played that is precisely around the many battles that were an intrinsic featureof life in Bamana Segu and that engendered vast numbers of slaves some of whom weresent across the Atlantic

While the epic recitations by Bamana jeliw with their vivid stories of Segursquos rulers ( faamaw) havebeen well documented from the point of view of their texts (Kesteloot Courlander DumestreConrad AQ68) the music which is equally steeped in the history and ethos of the region has stillnot been researched Bamana music is not included in Charryrsquos otherwise comprehensive studyof Mande music which focuses on Maninka and Mandinka traditions though he does acknowl-edge that lsquothe reign of the Bamana of Segu in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is animportant source of pieces for Malian musiciansrsquo (Charry 2000a 150) In addition there arevery few internationally available recordings either of Bamana music or of the ngograveniba its emble-matic instrument This general lack of source material no doubt explains why Bamana music hasbeen omitted in studies of the possible African antecedents of the blues It is only mentioned verybriefly in Kubikrsquos book Africa and the Blues (1999) which betrays a general lack of informationabout the styles from the middle Niger valley Yet Kubikrsquos instinct is to look for clues in preciselythis region referring to the music of Malirsquos griots as one lsquolikely candidate for early models thatwere still remembered by African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuryeventually becoming a factor in the development of the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 46) Kubik asks lsquohowsuch a ldquomemoryrdquo could have survived until the end of the nineteenth centuryrsquo (Kubik 1999 46italics in original) postulating that lsquowe are at least eighty years too late for reconstructing proto-blues forms On the other handrsquo he adds lsquothe absence of written sources testifying to suchmemory does not present a puzzlersquo (Kubik 1999 46)

lsquoPoyirsquo is perhaps one piece of that puzzle of memory and musical survival ndash from the otherside of the Atlantic (Figure 5)

The search for the roots of the blues

The search for the African roots of the blues has long been a subject of fascination to blues andAfrican music scholars (Charters Oliver Evans Kubik Coolen AQ69) as well as to American musi-cians of all sorts from blues and jazz to banjo players (too numerous to mention here) andmost recently film makers (for example Scorsesersquos Feel Like Going Home 2003 AQ4)

The Malian singer and guitarist Ali Farka Toureacute was the first to draw international awarenessto the similarities between traditional genres of Malirsquos northern desert and the blues resulting inthe label lsquodesert bluesrsquo coined in the early 1990s His Grammy-winning album Talkinrsquo Timbuktu

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270

Figure 5 (a) Map of Mali showing Segou province Malirsquos fourth regionSource httpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileUn-malipng (b) Map of Segou region Garana is 2 kmeast of TamaniSource Macdonald et al (2011)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 7

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in which he collaborated with American guitarist Ry Cooder captured the public imagination andwon him the epithet lsquoking of the desert bluesrsquo Toureacute himself rejected such descriptions howeverHe refuted the influence of the blues on his music claiming that it was the other way around Infact the excessive interest of Western journalists in his blues connection irritated Toureacute He wouldoften joke that for him blues meant doctors because doctors in Mali wore a blue uniform (per-sonal communication Nick Gold 2012 AQ5)

Toureacute was a farmer and not a griot ndash a guitarist and singer whose connection with music camefrom his grandmother Kounandi Samba a medium of the river spirits (Gibbal 1994 AQ6 68 Duraacuten1996) He was inspired by the ngograveni among other traditional instruments of the Niger valley andindeed his early recordings often featured the ngograveni or similar lutes played by griots from otherethnicities such as gambare played by Barou Sambarou a Soninke and the hoddu played byNassourou Sareacute a Fulani

Kubik who dedicates a large part of his Chapter 12 lsquoReturn to the western Sudanrsquo to a dis-cussion of Toureacute finds his music lsquoonly vaguely related to any type of bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 194)and questions whether Toureacutersquos lsquopersonal synthesis could be used to confirm pre-twentieth centuryhistorical connections [with the blues]rsquo (Kubik 1999 196) I would argue that there is only oneway of doing so which is to look at the local styles and songs that inspired him rather than seeingit as a lsquoblues derivativersquo15 Toureacute drew on a number of Malian styles his favourites were the onesfrom his region the bend of the Niger and the middle Niger valley

Some decades before Toureacute put Mali on the musical map of the blues Senegambia (particu-larly Wolof music) was considered a primary source of the blues first suggested by David Ames(Ames 1955) This argument was developed by Oliver in his pioneering book Savannah Synco-pators (1970 43ndash50) and then echoed by Charters (1974 AQ7 1981) Coolen (1982 1984 1991) andothers As Kubik points out the enormous success of Alex Haleyrsquos book and TV series Roots inthe late 1970s and early 1980s which places the Gambia at the centre of the story certainly stimu-lated the African-American imagination (Kubik 1999 188) Senegambia was an important sourceof plantation slaves in the Deep South (Coolen 1991) There are undeniable resemblancesbetween blues guitar fingering styles and the thumb and finger interlocked plucking techniqueson the Mandinka kora (Charry 2000a 178ndash189) Banjo enthusiasts have also put forwardother Senegambian string instruments such as the Jola long-necked lute called akonting as poss-ible antecedents to the blues16 and this connection has been explored most recently by the workof such banjo players as Bela Fleck on his 2010 Grammy awarded album Throw Down YourHeart

The lack of research on music from the middle Niger valley has however resulted in toonarrow a focus on particular regional traditions of savannah West Africa without settingthem in the wider context For example Coolen suggests the fodet a term used by Wolofxalam players for both tunings and generic accompaniments as a kind of template for theblues While not wrong fodet as a musical concept cannot be attributed solely to the Wolofsince similar concepts are shared by griots of neighbouring peoples all the way across themiddle Niger valley Also there is much oral evidence to show that many Wolof xalamkatstrace their ancestry to the Manden (the heartland of Mande culture in present-day westernMali and eastern Guinea) and a good part of their repertoire consists of well-known Mandejeli tunes like lsquoManga Yirarsquo lsquoAlfa Yayarsquo lsquoTutu Jararsquo and lsquoSunjatarsquo they even sing some ofthe choruses in Maninka not in their own language Wolof (see Charry 2000 AQ8

para 164 Duran

1981a)Kubik is sceptical about arguments for the Senegambia and instead gives

stronger weight to the central Sudanic region as one core area of provenance of some of the ruralbluesrsquo most characteristic traits the region from Mali across northern Ghana and northern Nigeriainto northern and central Cameroon rather than the westernmost geographical Sudan (Senegal

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360

The Gambia) Other possible core areas include northern Guinea and the Sahel zone from Mali intoMauritania (Kubik 1999 69ndash70)

It is well documented that captives from Segu were sent across the Atlantic though not in largenumbers

Curtin estimated that 80 percent of the total slave exports to the NewWorld were transported between1710 and 1850 or roughly during the entire era of the Segu Bambara state Slaves from Segu destinedfor the Atlantic trade were probably sent to Senegambia and Sierra Leone Slaves from these tworegions accounted for only 10ndash15 percent of the total slave exports from 1701 to 1867 andBambara slaves constituted only a fraction of this total (Roberts 1987 17ndash18)

The Scots explorer Mungo Park attests to the common practice of slavery in his account of histravels through the Mande countryside in 1796 His Chapter 22 is an interesting first-handaccount of the various ways in which people became slaves mainly warfare but also insolvencyIn his diary entry for 18 July 1796 he writes lsquoI was met by a coffle of slaves about seventy innumber coming from Sego [sic]rsquo (Park 17971983 AQ9) There are numerous other sightings ofslaves throughout his travels

This is significant because as Kubik mentions lsquothe story of the Bambara rice cultivatorsbrought to Louisiana specifically for their technological expertize AQ70

para has opened up new

aspects of the fine meshes and economics of the slave trade and its huge networks into theinterior of the west central Sudanrsquo (Kubik 1999 70) Carneyrsquos rich study of what she metaphori-cally calls lsquoblack ricersquo shows that rice cultivation in the Western hemisphere was indeed intro-duced by Bamana slaves ndash mainly women who to this day are the principal rice cultivators ofthe region ndash and lsquodepended upon the diffusion of an entire cultural system from production toconsumptionrsquo (Carney 2001 165) Bamana slaves were lsquocentral to understanding Louisianahistoryrsquo (Eltis Morgan and Richardson 2007 1332) The banjo derived from WestAfrican lutes such as the ngograveni was one of the main instruments of Louisiana slaves(Conway 1995 59 AQ10

para)

In Kubikrsquos chapter entitled lsquoWhy did a west central Sudanic style cluster prevail in the bluesrsquohe points on the one hand to the numbers of slaves to the New World from this region during theeighteenth century

Senegal was part of the French slave trading network to Louisiana Eventually in the 19th centurysome of the descendants of deportees from Senegal Guinea and Mali ended up on farms in Missis-sippi and elsewhere in the Deep Southhellip the names of ethnic groups from the geographical Sudan (asfrom other parts of Africa) were well remembered in new Orleans into the nineteenth century thoughsometimes in the form of an interesting phonetic transfer into French For example Fulbe or lsquoFularsquobecame lsquopoulardrsquo (fat chicken) (Kubik 1999 96)

On the other hand Kubik comments that lsquoin a group of people thrown together by the hazards oflife even one person is enough to transmit esoteric knowledge that might later become theproperty of a majorityhellip in culture contact situations it often happens that minorities winrsquo(Kubik 1999 98) Applying that argument to a piece of music rather than a person onecould argue the case for lsquoPoyirsquo being recreated among slave communities in the Deep Southor at very least providing some key musical features that contributed to the foundation ofthe blues

Rather than either Old World folkways or New World environments we need to encompass both andbecome much more thoroughly Atlantichellip rather than frame the issue as solely one of transfers andconduits we should also think of transformations and overlapping circuits (Eltis Morgan andRichardson 2007 1332)

Here I am not arguing that Bamana jeli music was directly transplanted via the slave trade to theDeep South but that aspects of it stayed in the memory there during the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies though perhaps relived in lsquothoroughly Atlanticrsquo ways (Figure 6)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 9

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390

395

400

405

lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

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aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

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495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

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Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

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The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

545

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565

570

575

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585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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14 L Duraacuten

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630

noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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685

690

695

700

705

710

715

720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

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740

745

750

755

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

770

775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

Colouronlin

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20 L Duraacuten

860

865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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965

970

975

980

985

990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

1045

1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

eBW

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

1090

1095

1100

1105

1110

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1120

1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

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instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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1205

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

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1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

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1360

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1385

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1395

field is the supposed grave of Sunjata Keitarsquos aunt Dograve Kamissa the lsquobuffalo womanrsquo This little-known and rarely visited spot plays a significant role in the imaginary of Bamana jeliw as it wasfrom her lineage that Sunjata was believed to have derived his esoteric strength with which he ledthe Mande to power4 (See Figure 3) AQ1

Like many of the surrounding villages in this part of Mali the middle Niger valley Garana hasa mixed population consisting of four main ethnicities ndash the Bamana who are the farmers theFulbe who are the pastoralists the Bozo who are the fishermen and the Soninke who are the mer-chants and Muslim clerics along with the Jokarame (a sedentary branch of the Fulbe) For thedayrsquos festivities each one of these had provided their own drummers and singers to representtheir communities and to entertain the crowd Megaphones connected to a rudimentary soundsystem had been mounted around the courtyard blaring out the music When the drummingand dancing finished the village schoolteacher gave a formal welcome speech Then it wastime for the Kouyateacute family to perform the songs for which they were known throughout theregion Bamana jeli (griot) music Most of their repertoire dates from the time of the SeguEmpire (c 1712ndash1861)5 (Figure 4)

Bamana jeli music shares some elements with other better known and more studied forms ofMande music6 but it has also many features that set it apart The repertoire is made up of anumber of songs that tell the stories of Segursquos rulers and warriors typically accompanied onthe ngograveniba a large four-string version of the lute the preferred instrument of Segursquos rulers(as described later on in this article) The songs are characterized by pentatonic scales 68rhythm and slow tempo Combined with the timbre of the ngograveni derived from fingering tech-niques that include slides pulls hammers and vibrato on the strings7 Bamana jeli music is attimes heavily redolent of the blues

One piece in particular lsquoPoyirsquo stood out that day as a blues lsquodead ringerrsquo ndash especially the wayit was played by Bassekou Kouyateacute I was in Garana at the time researching the Bamana reper-toire for a recording project with Bassekou8 I was already familiar with several of the best-knownBamana songs such as lsquoDa Monzonrsquo and lsquoBakari Janrsquo but lsquoPoyirsquo was new to me Perhaps I had

Figure 3 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the spot marking the supposed grave of Dograve Kamissa (the buffalo woman)aunt of Sunjata Keita who founded the Mali Empire in 1235Source Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 3

95

100

105

110

115

120

125

130

135

heard lsquoPoyirsquo before but had failed to recognize it since it is more of a template accompanimentthan a specific song much in the way that the blues is While his older brother Modibo played aslow two-bar melody in 68 time on the large ngograveniba Bassekou gradually added variations on asmaller ngograveni some of which sounded distinctly bluesy at times reminiscent of the kinds of guitarriffs one might hear on a John Lee Hooker track9

That evening when the festivities were over I asked the two brothers to tell me more aboutlsquoPoyirsquo Bassekou explained that it was an old very traditional piece which had several regionalvariants He had taken his fatherrsquos version and modified it in his own way ndash a common enoughprocess by which Mande jeli pieces evolve through time and the oral tradition Bassekoursquos way ofplaying lsquoPoyirsquo reflected his contact with blues musicians on stages and in studios around theworld Nevertheless his upbringing in a remote village as the son of a knowledgeable and distin-guished jeli family had provided him with a solid grounding in local oral narrative

From Bassekoursquos description it emerged that unlike most of the Mande jeli repertoire lsquoPoyirsquois not connected with any one historical person or song10 Instead it is an accompaniment overwhich male jeliw would improvise spoken praises for those who have demonstrated great braveryand strength It could also be played as an instrumental which is unusual in the Mande repertoirelsquoPoyirsquo added Modibo (who had never heard of the blues) was a term to signify bravery on thebattlefield at the time of the Segu Empire It was the tune to which nobles swore an oath It alsohad grim associations with the battlefield

Poyi is the original Bamana blues Wewere taught it by our father Moustapha Kouyateacute whowas a greatngograveni player and his father before him He never even heard of the blues but when he played Poyi itwas the bluesPoyimeans to kill people it means to shed blood It was considered better to capture youropponent alive than to kill himWould they ever come back alive to their homes and family ndash or wouldthey lie dead in the battlefield food for vultures or be captured and enslaved

Figure 4 Modibo Kouyateacute playing the ngograveniba through a small amplifier surrounded by his family hismother the singer Yakareacute Damba (wearing an orange and green scarf) and his sister Oumou Kouyateacute (farright)Source Garana (2006)

Colouronlin

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4 L Duraacuten

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145

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175

180

After the battle all those captured alive had to line up and the jeli would play PoyihellipOne after theother each would be asked lsquodo you want to go into slaveryrsquo If he says yes he passes out of the lineand he belongs to his captor If he says no he has to stand still and his head is chopped off (BassekouKouyateacute Personal communication Garana 2006 AQ2)

There is plenty of gore in the Bamana epic tradition (see for example the vivid description of abloody massacre by hatchetmen of Bamana elders after the death of Monzon Conrad 1999 186ndash187) Yet the Kouyateacute brothersrsquo account of how lsquoPoyirsquo was linked to the precise moment whencaptured warriors had to choose between shameful life in slavery or honour in death11 openedup new perspectives on the so-far undocumented connections between the blues and Bamanamusic It raised the question how significant was the context in which such music was playedif it was the last piece to be played to warriors before they went to battle What effect wouldsuch an association with warfare bloodshed and indeed esoteric power have on the minds of cap-tives some of whom might have been shipped across the Atlantic

This article attempts to address some of these questions A major part of the discussion isdevoted to a long-overdue ethnography of Bamana jeli music giving descriptions of its historicaland cultural context its musical and lyrical features its main instrument the ngograveniba and itsrepertoires in order to better assess their place in the quest for the roots of the blues Thearticle draws on extensive research conducted by the author with Mande jeliw over many yearsin Mali The family of Bassekou Kouyateacute in Garana who represent an old and authoritativeoral tradition have been a particularly important source of information on the Bamana repertoirebut many other musicians have also been consulted on the topic in both Segou and Bamako and inthe diaspora12

The discussion ends with a focus on lsquoPoyirsquo a tune that has been little reported and for whichthere are few recordings Yet there is enough evidence from oral tradition documentary literatureand a few extant recordings to suggest that it was once a powerful signifier of core Bamana valuesAli Farka Toureacute the leading figure in Malirsquos lsquodesert bluesrsquo cited lsquoPoyirsquo as a kind of proto-blues lsquoIhave always said the word blues has no significance here in Africahellip if therersquos a need for a labeltherersquos no reason why the Americans shouldnrsquot call it the blues But if I sayhellip Seygalare orNdoondo or Mbowdi or Poyi Everyone here knows what that isrsquo13

Writing about uprooted populations on the borderlands of South Africa Mozambique andSwaziland Angela Impey observes that lsquosound song and the effect of music-making representa much under-utilised historical research resource particularly in contexts of spatial and socialrupturersquo (Impey 2008 33) lsquoPoyirsquo may well be such a resource a piece of musical archaeologysurviving in the oral tradition which has a bearing on the story of Mali and the blues

The quest for specific African sources of African-American musical genres is highly proble-matic (see Kubik 1999 22ndash23) In a 2007 interview for the American radio programme AfropopWorldwide Kubik whose book Africa and the Blues (1999) is the most comprehensive study todate emphasized the futility of looking for African roots of the blues

In African and African-American history as elsewhere in the world we have to operate from sourceswritten sources oral sources recorded sources if possible archaeological sources Where there are nosources there can be no safe conclusions lsquoRootsrsquo is too vague to be used beyond casual statementsthat such and such tradition is based on something somewhere For example all the talk about roots ofthe blues in Mali is just enough to satisfy the publicrsquos need for wild imagination But we want to knowwhich traditions by whom in Mali or elsewhere and in which time period ndash late 18th century ndash wererelevant as a background for the rise of blues in the US a century later Popular formulations such aslsquoFrom Mali to Mississippirsquo are anathema to historical studies(Gerhard Kubik interview with Banning Eyre on Afropop Worldwide 2007 AQ3 PBS radio)14

In an attempt to move beyond the publicrsquos lsquowild imaginationrsquo this article seeks to provide someanswers to Kubikrsquos three questions as follows

Journal of African Cultural Studies 5

185

190

195

200

205

210

215

220

225

(1) lsquowhich traditionsrsquo This article argues that Bamana jeli music is one tradition that has sofar been overlooked as a music which might well have fed into the early rural blues andbefore that slave banjo music Bamana music belongs to a wider regional style in centralMali overlapping with other neighbouring cultures such as those of the Fulbe andSoninke but it may have been the conduit by which such musical traits crossed the Atlan-tic with the slave trade

(2) lsquoplayed by whom in Malirsquo I suggest that the answer to this is the Bamana jeliw with tunessuch as lsquoPoyirsquo

(3) lsquoduring which time periodrsquo This question can be answered at a broad level by citing theBamana Segu Empire during the eighteenth century a time of intensive slave trade towhich the empire certainly contributed Not only did the Bamana Segu Empire thriveon slavery but it was ruled by former war captives (the Diarra lineage) from 1766 to1861 (Conrad 1990) But perhaps we can further narrow down the lsquowhich timersquo questionand even suggest a likely specific context in which this possible root of the blues wouldhave been played that is precisely around the many battles that were an intrinsic featureof life in Bamana Segu and that engendered vast numbers of slaves some of whom weresent across the Atlantic

While the epic recitations by Bamana jeliw with their vivid stories of Segursquos rulers ( faamaw) havebeen well documented from the point of view of their texts (Kesteloot Courlander DumestreConrad AQ68) the music which is equally steeped in the history and ethos of the region has stillnot been researched Bamana music is not included in Charryrsquos otherwise comprehensive studyof Mande music which focuses on Maninka and Mandinka traditions though he does acknowl-edge that lsquothe reign of the Bamana of Segu in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is animportant source of pieces for Malian musiciansrsquo (Charry 2000a 150) In addition there arevery few internationally available recordings either of Bamana music or of the ngograveniba its emble-matic instrument This general lack of source material no doubt explains why Bamana music hasbeen omitted in studies of the possible African antecedents of the blues It is only mentioned verybriefly in Kubikrsquos book Africa and the Blues (1999) which betrays a general lack of informationabout the styles from the middle Niger valley Yet Kubikrsquos instinct is to look for clues in preciselythis region referring to the music of Malirsquos griots as one lsquolikely candidate for early models thatwere still remembered by African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuryeventually becoming a factor in the development of the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 46) Kubik asks lsquohowsuch a ldquomemoryrdquo could have survived until the end of the nineteenth centuryrsquo (Kubik 1999 46italics in original) postulating that lsquowe are at least eighty years too late for reconstructing proto-blues forms On the other handrsquo he adds lsquothe absence of written sources testifying to suchmemory does not present a puzzlersquo (Kubik 1999 46)

lsquoPoyirsquo is perhaps one piece of that puzzle of memory and musical survival ndash from the otherside of the Atlantic (Figure 5)

The search for the roots of the blues

The search for the African roots of the blues has long been a subject of fascination to blues andAfrican music scholars (Charters Oliver Evans Kubik Coolen AQ69) as well as to American musi-cians of all sorts from blues and jazz to banjo players (too numerous to mention here) andmost recently film makers (for example Scorsesersquos Feel Like Going Home 2003 AQ4)

The Malian singer and guitarist Ali Farka Toureacute was the first to draw international awarenessto the similarities between traditional genres of Malirsquos northern desert and the blues resulting inthe label lsquodesert bluesrsquo coined in the early 1990s His Grammy-winning album Talkinrsquo Timbuktu

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Figure 5 (a) Map of Mali showing Segou province Malirsquos fourth regionSource httpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileUn-malipng (b) Map of Segou region Garana is 2 kmeast of TamaniSource Macdonald et al (2011)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 7

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in which he collaborated with American guitarist Ry Cooder captured the public imagination andwon him the epithet lsquoking of the desert bluesrsquo Toureacute himself rejected such descriptions howeverHe refuted the influence of the blues on his music claiming that it was the other way around Infact the excessive interest of Western journalists in his blues connection irritated Toureacute He wouldoften joke that for him blues meant doctors because doctors in Mali wore a blue uniform (per-sonal communication Nick Gold 2012 AQ5)

Toureacute was a farmer and not a griot ndash a guitarist and singer whose connection with music camefrom his grandmother Kounandi Samba a medium of the river spirits (Gibbal 1994 AQ6 68 Duraacuten1996) He was inspired by the ngograveni among other traditional instruments of the Niger valley andindeed his early recordings often featured the ngograveni or similar lutes played by griots from otherethnicities such as gambare played by Barou Sambarou a Soninke and the hoddu played byNassourou Sareacute a Fulani

Kubik who dedicates a large part of his Chapter 12 lsquoReturn to the western Sudanrsquo to a dis-cussion of Toureacute finds his music lsquoonly vaguely related to any type of bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 194)and questions whether Toureacutersquos lsquopersonal synthesis could be used to confirm pre-twentieth centuryhistorical connections [with the blues]rsquo (Kubik 1999 196) I would argue that there is only oneway of doing so which is to look at the local styles and songs that inspired him rather than seeingit as a lsquoblues derivativersquo15 Toureacute drew on a number of Malian styles his favourites were the onesfrom his region the bend of the Niger and the middle Niger valley

Some decades before Toureacute put Mali on the musical map of the blues Senegambia (particu-larly Wolof music) was considered a primary source of the blues first suggested by David Ames(Ames 1955) This argument was developed by Oliver in his pioneering book Savannah Synco-pators (1970 43ndash50) and then echoed by Charters (1974 AQ7 1981) Coolen (1982 1984 1991) andothers As Kubik points out the enormous success of Alex Haleyrsquos book and TV series Roots inthe late 1970s and early 1980s which places the Gambia at the centre of the story certainly stimu-lated the African-American imagination (Kubik 1999 188) Senegambia was an important sourceof plantation slaves in the Deep South (Coolen 1991) There are undeniable resemblancesbetween blues guitar fingering styles and the thumb and finger interlocked plucking techniqueson the Mandinka kora (Charry 2000a 178ndash189) Banjo enthusiasts have also put forwardother Senegambian string instruments such as the Jola long-necked lute called akonting as poss-ible antecedents to the blues16 and this connection has been explored most recently by the workof such banjo players as Bela Fleck on his 2010 Grammy awarded album Throw Down YourHeart

The lack of research on music from the middle Niger valley has however resulted in toonarrow a focus on particular regional traditions of savannah West Africa without settingthem in the wider context For example Coolen suggests the fodet a term used by Wolofxalam players for both tunings and generic accompaniments as a kind of template for theblues While not wrong fodet as a musical concept cannot be attributed solely to the Wolofsince similar concepts are shared by griots of neighbouring peoples all the way across themiddle Niger valley Also there is much oral evidence to show that many Wolof xalamkatstrace their ancestry to the Manden (the heartland of Mande culture in present-day westernMali and eastern Guinea) and a good part of their repertoire consists of well-known Mandejeli tunes like lsquoManga Yirarsquo lsquoAlfa Yayarsquo lsquoTutu Jararsquo and lsquoSunjatarsquo they even sing some ofthe choruses in Maninka not in their own language Wolof (see Charry 2000 AQ8

para 164 Duran

1981a)Kubik is sceptical about arguments for the Senegambia and instead gives

stronger weight to the central Sudanic region as one core area of provenance of some of the ruralbluesrsquo most characteristic traits the region from Mali across northern Ghana and northern Nigeriainto northern and central Cameroon rather than the westernmost geographical Sudan (Senegal

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360

The Gambia) Other possible core areas include northern Guinea and the Sahel zone from Mali intoMauritania (Kubik 1999 69ndash70)

It is well documented that captives from Segu were sent across the Atlantic though not in largenumbers

Curtin estimated that 80 percent of the total slave exports to the NewWorld were transported between1710 and 1850 or roughly during the entire era of the Segu Bambara state Slaves from Segu destinedfor the Atlantic trade were probably sent to Senegambia and Sierra Leone Slaves from these tworegions accounted for only 10ndash15 percent of the total slave exports from 1701 to 1867 andBambara slaves constituted only a fraction of this total (Roberts 1987 17ndash18)

The Scots explorer Mungo Park attests to the common practice of slavery in his account of histravels through the Mande countryside in 1796 His Chapter 22 is an interesting first-handaccount of the various ways in which people became slaves mainly warfare but also insolvencyIn his diary entry for 18 July 1796 he writes lsquoI was met by a coffle of slaves about seventy innumber coming from Sego [sic]rsquo (Park 17971983 AQ9) There are numerous other sightings ofslaves throughout his travels

This is significant because as Kubik mentions lsquothe story of the Bambara rice cultivatorsbrought to Louisiana specifically for their technological expertize AQ70

para has opened up new

aspects of the fine meshes and economics of the slave trade and its huge networks into theinterior of the west central Sudanrsquo (Kubik 1999 70) Carneyrsquos rich study of what she metaphori-cally calls lsquoblack ricersquo shows that rice cultivation in the Western hemisphere was indeed intro-duced by Bamana slaves ndash mainly women who to this day are the principal rice cultivators ofthe region ndash and lsquodepended upon the diffusion of an entire cultural system from production toconsumptionrsquo (Carney 2001 165) Bamana slaves were lsquocentral to understanding Louisianahistoryrsquo (Eltis Morgan and Richardson 2007 1332) The banjo derived from WestAfrican lutes such as the ngograveni was one of the main instruments of Louisiana slaves(Conway 1995 59 AQ10

para)

In Kubikrsquos chapter entitled lsquoWhy did a west central Sudanic style cluster prevail in the bluesrsquohe points on the one hand to the numbers of slaves to the New World from this region during theeighteenth century

Senegal was part of the French slave trading network to Louisiana Eventually in the 19th centurysome of the descendants of deportees from Senegal Guinea and Mali ended up on farms in Missis-sippi and elsewhere in the Deep Southhellip the names of ethnic groups from the geographical Sudan (asfrom other parts of Africa) were well remembered in new Orleans into the nineteenth century thoughsometimes in the form of an interesting phonetic transfer into French For example Fulbe or lsquoFularsquobecame lsquopoulardrsquo (fat chicken) (Kubik 1999 96)

On the other hand Kubik comments that lsquoin a group of people thrown together by the hazards oflife even one person is enough to transmit esoteric knowledge that might later become theproperty of a majorityhellip in culture contact situations it often happens that minorities winrsquo(Kubik 1999 98) Applying that argument to a piece of music rather than a person onecould argue the case for lsquoPoyirsquo being recreated among slave communities in the Deep Southor at very least providing some key musical features that contributed to the foundation ofthe blues

Rather than either Old World folkways or New World environments we need to encompass both andbecome much more thoroughly Atlantichellip rather than frame the issue as solely one of transfers andconduits we should also think of transformations and overlapping circuits (Eltis Morgan andRichardson 2007 1332)

Here I am not arguing that Bamana jeli music was directly transplanted via the slave trade to theDeep South but that aspects of it stayed in the memory there during the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies though perhaps relived in lsquothoroughly Atlanticrsquo ways (Figure 6)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 9

365

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375

380

385

390

395

400

405

lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

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aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

455

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480

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495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

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Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

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The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

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575

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585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

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645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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715

720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

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750

755

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

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775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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20 L Duraacuten

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865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

950

955

960

965

970

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980

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

1045

1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

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1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

1180

1185

1190

1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

heard lsquoPoyirsquo before but had failed to recognize it since it is more of a template accompanimentthan a specific song much in the way that the blues is While his older brother Modibo played aslow two-bar melody in 68 time on the large ngograveniba Bassekou gradually added variations on asmaller ngograveni some of which sounded distinctly bluesy at times reminiscent of the kinds of guitarriffs one might hear on a John Lee Hooker track9

That evening when the festivities were over I asked the two brothers to tell me more aboutlsquoPoyirsquo Bassekou explained that it was an old very traditional piece which had several regionalvariants He had taken his fatherrsquos version and modified it in his own way ndash a common enoughprocess by which Mande jeli pieces evolve through time and the oral tradition Bassekoursquos way ofplaying lsquoPoyirsquo reflected his contact with blues musicians on stages and in studios around theworld Nevertheless his upbringing in a remote village as the son of a knowledgeable and distin-guished jeli family had provided him with a solid grounding in local oral narrative

From Bassekoursquos description it emerged that unlike most of the Mande jeli repertoire lsquoPoyirsquois not connected with any one historical person or song10 Instead it is an accompaniment overwhich male jeliw would improvise spoken praises for those who have demonstrated great braveryand strength It could also be played as an instrumental which is unusual in the Mande repertoirelsquoPoyirsquo added Modibo (who had never heard of the blues) was a term to signify bravery on thebattlefield at the time of the Segu Empire It was the tune to which nobles swore an oath It alsohad grim associations with the battlefield

Poyi is the original Bamana blues Wewere taught it by our father Moustapha Kouyateacute whowas a greatngograveni player and his father before him He never even heard of the blues but when he played Poyi itwas the bluesPoyimeans to kill people it means to shed blood It was considered better to capture youropponent alive than to kill himWould they ever come back alive to their homes and family ndash or wouldthey lie dead in the battlefield food for vultures or be captured and enslaved

Figure 4 Modibo Kouyateacute playing the ngograveniba through a small amplifier surrounded by his family hismother the singer Yakareacute Damba (wearing an orange and green scarf) and his sister Oumou Kouyateacute (farright)Source Garana (2006)

Colouronlin

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inprint

4 L Duraacuten

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145

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165

170

175

180

After the battle all those captured alive had to line up and the jeli would play PoyihellipOne after theother each would be asked lsquodo you want to go into slaveryrsquo If he says yes he passes out of the lineand he belongs to his captor If he says no he has to stand still and his head is chopped off (BassekouKouyateacute Personal communication Garana 2006 AQ2)

There is plenty of gore in the Bamana epic tradition (see for example the vivid description of abloody massacre by hatchetmen of Bamana elders after the death of Monzon Conrad 1999 186ndash187) Yet the Kouyateacute brothersrsquo account of how lsquoPoyirsquo was linked to the precise moment whencaptured warriors had to choose between shameful life in slavery or honour in death11 openedup new perspectives on the so-far undocumented connections between the blues and Bamanamusic It raised the question how significant was the context in which such music was playedif it was the last piece to be played to warriors before they went to battle What effect wouldsuch an association with warfare bloodshed and indeed esoteric power have on the minds of cap-tives some of whom might have been shipped across the Atlantic

This article attempts to address some of these questions A major part of the discussion isdevoted to a long-overdue ethnography of Bamana jeli music giving descriptions of its historicaland cultural context its musical and lyrical features its main instrument the ngograveniba and itsrepertoires in order to better assess their place in the quest for the roots of the blues Thearticle draws on extensive research conducted by the author with Mande jeliw over many yearsin Mali The family of Bassekou Kouyateacute in Garana who represent an old and authoritativeoral tradition have been a particularly important source of information on the Bamana repertoirebut many other musicians have also been consulted on the topic in both Segou and Bamako and inthe diaspora12

The discussion ends with a focus on lsquoPoyirsquo a tune that has been little reported and for whichthere are few recordings Yet there is enough evidence from oral tradition documentary literatureand a few extant recordings to suggest that it was once a powerful signifier of core Bamana valuesAli Farka Toureacute the leading figure in Malirsquos lsquodesert bluesrsquo cited lsquoPoyirsquo as a kind of proto-blues lsquoIhave always said the word blues has no significance here in Africahellip if therersquos a need for a labeltherersquos no reason why the Americans shouldnrsquot call it the blues But if I sayhellip Seygalare orNdoondo or Mbowdi or Poyi Everyone here knows what that isrsquo13

Writing about uprooted populations on the borderlands of South Africa Mozambique andSwaziland Angela Impey observes that lsquosound song and the effect of music-making representa much under-utilised historical research resource particularly in contexts of spatial and socialrupturersquo (Impey 2008 33) lsquoPoyirsquo may well be such a resource a piece of musical archaeologysurviving in the oral tradition which has a bearing on the story of Mali and the blues

The quest for specific African sources of African-American musical genres is highly proble-matic (see Kubik 1999 22ndash23) In a 2007 interview for the American radio programme AfropopWorldwide Kubik whose book Africa and the Blues (1999) is the most comprehensive study todate emphasized the futility of looking for African roots of the blues

In African and African-American history as elsewhere in the world we have to operate from sourceswritten sources oral sources recorded sources if possible archaeological sources Where there are nosources there can be no safe conclusions lsquoRootsrsquo is too vague to be used beyond casual statementsthat such and such tradition is based on something somewhere For example all the talk about roots ofthe blues in Mali is just enough to satisfy the publicrsquos need for wild imagination But we want to knowwhich traditions by whom in Mali or elsewhere and in which time period ndash late 18th century ndash wererelevant as a background for the rise of blues in the US a century later Popular formulations such aslsquoFrom Mali to Mississippirsquo are anathema to historical studies(Gerhard Kubik interview with Banning Eyre on Afropop Worldwide 2007 AQ3 PBS radio)14

In an attempt to move beyond the publicrsquos lsquowild imaginationrsquo this article seeks to provide someanswers to Kubikrsquos three questions as follows

Journal of African Cultural Studies 5

185

190

195

200

205

210

215

220

225

(1) lsquowhich traditionsrsquo This article argues that Bamana jeli music is one tradition that has sofar been overlooked as a music which might well have fed into the early rural blues andbefore that slave banjo music Bamana music belongs to a wider regional style in centralMali overlapping with other neighbouring cultures such as those of the Fulbe andSoninke but it may have been the conduit by which such musical traits crossed the Atlan-tic with the slave trade

(2) lsquoplayed by whom in Malirsquo I suggest that the answer to this is the Bamana jeliw with tunessuch as lsquoPoyirsquo

(3) lsquoduring which time periodrsquo This question can be answered at a broad level by citing theBamana Segu Empire during the eighteenth century a time of intensive slave trade towhich the empire certainly contributed Not only did the Bamana Segu Empire thriveon slavery but it was ruled by former war captives (the Diarra lineage) from 1766 to1861 (Conrad 1990) But perhaps we can further narrow down the lsquowhich timersquo questionand even suggest a likely specific context in which this possible root of the blues wouldhave been played that is precisely around the many battles that were an intrinsic featureof life in Bamana Segu and that engendered vast numbers of slaves some of whom weresent across the Atlantic

While the epic recitations by Bamana jeliw with their vivid stories of Segursquos rulers ( faamaw) havebeen well documented from the point of view of their texts (Kesteloot Courlander DumestreConrad AQ68) the music which is equally steeped in the history and ethos of the region has stillnot been researched Bamana music is not included in Charryrsquos otherwise comprehensive studyof Mande music which focuses on Maninka and Mandinka traditions though he does acknowl-edge that lsquothe reign of the Bamana of Segu in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is animportant source of pieces for Malian musiciansrsquo (Charry 2000a 150) In addition there arevery few internationally available recordings either of Bamana music or of the ngograveniba its emble-matic instrument This general lack of source material no doubt explains why Bamana music hasbeen omitted in studies of the possible African antecedents of the blues It is only mentioned verybriefly in Kubikrsquos book Africa and the Blues (1999) which betrays a general lack of informationabout the styles from the middle Niger valley Yet Kubikrsquos instinct is to look for clues in preciselythis region referring to the music of Malirsquos griots as one lsquolikely candidate for early models thatwere still remembered by African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuryeventually becoming a factor in the development of the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 46) Kubik asks lsquohowsuch a ldquomemoryrdquo could have survived until the end of the nineteenth centuryrsquo (Kubik 1999 46italics in original) postulating that lsquowe are at least eighty years too late for reconstructing proto-blues forms On the other handrsquo he adds lsquothe absence of written sources testifying to suchmemory does not present a puzzlersquo (Kubik 1999 46)

lsquoPoyirsquo is perhaps one piece of that puzzle of memory and musical survival ndash from the otherside of the Atlantic (Figure 5)

The search for the roots of the blues

The search for the African roots of the blues has long been a subject of fascination to blues andAfrican music scholars (Charters Oliver Evans Kubik Coolen AQ69) as well as to American musi-cians of all sorts from blues and jazz to banjo players (too numerous to mention here) andmost recently film makers (for example Scorsesersquos Feel Like Going Home 2003 AQ4)

The Malian singer and guitarist Ali Farka Toureacute was the first to draw international awarenessto the similarities between traditional genres of Malirsquos northern desert and the blues resulting inthe label lsquodesert bluesrsquo coined in the early 1990s His Grammy-winning album Talkinrsquo Timbuktu

6 L Duraacuten

230

235

240

245

250

255

260

265

270

Figure 5 (a) Map of Mali showing Segou province Malirsquos fourth regionSource httpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileUn-malipng (b) Map of Segou region Garana is 2 kmeast of TamaniSource Macdonald et al (2011)

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 7

275

280

285

290

295

300

305

310

315

in which he collaborated with American guitarist Ry Cooder captured the public imagination andwon him the epithet lsquoking of the desert bluesrsquo Toureacute himself rejected such descriptions howeverHe refuted the influence of the blues on his music claiming that it was the other way around Infact the excessive interest of Western journalists in his blues connection irritated Toureacute He wouldoften joke that for him blues meant doctors because doctors in Mali wore a blue uniform (per-sonal communication Nick Gold 2012 AQ5)

Toureacute was a farmer and not a griot ndash a guitarist and singer whose connection with music camefrom his grandmother Kounandi Samba a medium of the river spirits (Gibbal 1994 AQ6 68 Duraacuten1996) He was inspired by the ngograveni among other traditional instruments of the Niger valley andindeed his early recordings often featured the ngograveni or similar lutes played by griots from otherethnicities such as gambare played by Barou Sambarou a Soninke and the hoddu played byNassourou Sareacute a Fulani

Kubik who dedicates a large part of his Chapter 12 lsquoReturn to the western Sudanrsquo to a dis-cussion of Toureacute finds his music lsquoonly vaguely related to any type of bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 194)and questions whether Toureacutersquos lsquopersonal synthesis could be used to confirm pre-twentieth centuryhistorical connections [with the blues]rsquo (Kubik 1999 196) I would argue that there is only oneway of doing so which is to look at the local styles and songs that inspired him rather than seeingit as a lsquoblues derivativersquo15 Toureacute drew on a number of Malian styles his favourites were the onesfrom his region the bend of the Niger and the middle Niger valley

Some decades before Toureacute put Mali on the musical map of the blues Senegambia (particu-larly Wolof music) was considered a primary source of the blues first suggested by David Ames(Ames 1955) This argument was developed by Oliver in his pioneering book Savannah Synco-pators (1970 43ndash50) and then echoed by Charters (1974 AQ7 1981) Coolen (1982 1984 1991) andothers As Kubik points out the enormous success of Alex Haleyrsquos book and TV series Roots inthe late 1970s and early 1980s which places the Gambia at the centre of the story certainly stimu-lated the African-American imagination (Kubik 1999 188) Senegambia was an important sourceof plantation slaves in the Deep South (Coolen 1991) There are undeniable resemblancesbetween blues guitar fingering styles and the thumb and finger interlocked plucking techniqueson the Mandinka kora (Charry 2000a 178ndash189) Banjo enthusiasts have also put forwardother Senegambian string instruments such as the Jola long-necked lute called akonting as poss-ible antecedents to the blues16 and this connection has been explored most recently by the workof such banjo players as Bela Fleck on his 2010 Grammy awarded album Throw Down YourHeart

The lack of research on music from the middle Niger valley has however resulted in toonarrow a focus on particular regional traditions of savannah West Africa without settingthem in the wider context For example Coolen suggests the fodet a term used by Wolofxalam players for both tunings and generic accompaniments as a kind of template for theblues While not wrong fodet as a musical concept cannot be attributed solely to the Wolofsince similar concepts are shared by griots of neighbouring peoples all the way across themiddle Niger valley Also there is much oral evidence to show that many Wolof xalamkatstrace their ancestry to the Manden (the heartland of Mande culture in present-day westernMali and eastern Guinea) and a good part of their repertoire consists of well-known Mandejeli tunes like lsquoManga Yirarsquo lsquoAlfa Yayarsquo lsquoTutu Jararsquo and lsquoSunjatarsquo they even sing some ofthe choruses in Maninka not in their own language Wolof (see Charry 2000 AQ8

para 164 Duran

1981a)Kubik is sceptical about arguments for the Senegambia and instead gives

stronger weight to the central Sudanic region as one core area of provenance of some of the ruralbluesrsquo most characteristic traits the region from Mali across northern Ghana and northern Nigeriainto northern and central Cameroon rather than the westernmost geographical Sudan (Senegal

8 L Duraacuten

320

325

330

335

340

345

350

355

360

The Gambia) Other possible core areas include northern Guinea and the Sahel zone from Mali intoMauritania (Kubik 1999 69ndash70)

It is well documented that captives from Segu were sent across the Atlantic though not in largenumbers

Curtin estimated that 80 percent of the total slave exports to the NewWorld were transported between1710 and 1850 or roughly during the entire era of the Segu Bambara state Slaves from Segu destinedfor the Atlantic trade were probably sent to Senegambia and Sierra Leone Slaves from these tworegions accounted for only 10ndash15 percent of the total slave exports from 1701 to 1867 andBambara slaves constituted only a fraction of this total (Roberts 1987 17ndash18)

The Scots explorer Mungo Park attests to the common practice of slavery in his account of histravels through the Mande countryside in 1796 His Chapter 22 is an interesting first-handaccount of the various ways in which people became slaves mainly warfare but also insolvencyIn his diary entry for 18 July 1796 he writes lsquoI was met by a coffle of slaves about seventy innumber coming from Sego [sic]rsquo (Park 17971983 AQ9) There are numerous other sightings ofslaves throughout his travels

This is significant because as Kubik mentions lsquothe story of the Bambara rice cultivatorsbrought to Louisiana specifically for their technological expertize AQ70

para has opened up new

aspects of the fine meshes and economics of the slave trade and its huge networks into theinterior of the west central Sudanrsquo (Kubik 1999 70) Carneyrsquos rich study of what she metaphori-cally calls lsquoblack ricersquo shows that rice cultivation in the Western hemisphere was indeed intro-duced by Bamana slaves ndash mainly women who to this day are the principal rice cultivators ofthe region ndash and lsquodepended upon the diffusion of an entire cultural system from production toconsumptionrsquo (Carney 2001 165) Bamana slaves were lsquocentral to understanding Louisianahistoryrsquo (Eltis Morgan and Richardson 2007 1332) The banjo derived from WestAfrican lutes such as the ngograveni was one of the main instruments of Louisiana slaves(Conway 1995 59 AQ10

para)

In Kubikrsquos chapter entitled lsquoWhy did a west central Sudanic style cluster prevail in the bluesrsquohe points on the one hand to the numbers of slaves to the New World from this region during theeighteenth century

Senegal was part of the French slave trading network to Louisiana Eventually in the 19th centurysome of the descendants of deportees from Senegal Guinea and Mali ended up on farms in Missis-sippi and elsewhere in the Deep Southhellip the names of ethnic groups from the geographical Sudan (asfrom other parts of Africa) were well remembered in new Orleans into the nineteenth century thoughsometimes in the form of an interesting phonetic transfer into French For example Fulbe or lsquoFularsquobecame lsquopoulardrsquo (fat chicken) (Kubik 1999 96)

On the other hand Kubik comments that lsquoin a group of people thrown together by the hazards oflife even one person is enough to transmit esoteric knowledge that might later become theproperty of a majorityhellip in culture contact situations it often happens that minorities winrsquo(Kubik 1999 98) Applying that argument to a piece of music rather than a person onecould argue the case for lsquoPoyirsquo being recreated among slave communities in the Deep Southor at very least providing some key musical features that contributed to the foundation ofthe blues

Rather than either Old World folkways or New World environments we need to encompass both andbecome much more thoroughly Atlantichellip rather than frame the issue as solely one of transfers andconduits we should also think of transformations and overlapping circuits (Eltis Morgan andRichardson 2007 1332)

Here I am not arguing that Bamana jeli music was directly transplanted via the slave trade to theDeep South but that aspects of it stayed in the memory there during the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies though perhaps relived in lsquothoroughly Atlanticrsquo ways (Figure 6)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 9

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390

395

400

405

lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

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aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

455

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480

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495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

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Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

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The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

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555

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575

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585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

735

740

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755

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

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810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

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855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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20 L Duraacuten

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885

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there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

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1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

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1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

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1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

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where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

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1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

1315

1320

1325

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1335

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1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

After the battle all those captured alive had to line up and the jeli would play PoyihellipOne after theother each would be asked lsquodo you want to go into slaveryrsquo If he says yes he passes out of the lineand he belongs to his captor If he says no he has to stand still and his head is chopped off (BassekouKouyateacute Personal communication Garana 2006 AQ2)

There is plenty of gore in the Bamana epic tradition (see for example the vivid description of abloody massacre by hatchetmen of Bamana elders after the death of Monzon Conrad 1999 186ndash187) Yet the Kouyateacute brothersrsquo account of how lsquoPoyirsquo was linked to the precise moment whencaptured warriors had to choose between shameful life in slavery or honour in death11 openedup new perspectives on the so-far undocumented connections between the blues and Bamanamusic It raised the question how significant was the context in which such music was playedif it was the last piece to be played to warriors before they went to battle What effect wouldsuch an association with warfare bloodshed and indeed esoteric power have on the minds of cap-tives some of whom might have been shipped across the Atlantic

This article attempts to address some of these questions A major part of the discussion isdevoted to a long-overdue ethnography of Bamana jeli music giving descriptions of its historicaland cultural context its musical and lyrical features its main instrument the ngograveniba and itsrepertoires in order to better assess their place in the quest for the roots of the blues Thearticle draws on extensive research conducted by the author with Mande jeliw over many yearsin Mali The family of Bassekou Kouyateacute in Garana who represent an old and authoritativeoral tradition have been a particularly important source of information on the Bamana repertoirebut many other musicians have also been consulted on the topic in both Segou and Bamako and inthe diaspora12

The discussion ends with a focus on lsquoPoyirsquo a tune that has been little reported and for whichthere are few recordings Yet there is enough evidence from oral tradition documentary literatureand a few extant recordings to suggest that it was once a powerful signifier of core Bamana valuesAli Farka Toureacute the leading figure in Malirsquos lsquodesert bluesrsquo cited lsquoPoyirsquo as a kind of proto-blues lsquoIhave always said the word blues has no significance here in Africahellip if therersquos a need for a labeltherersquos no reason why the Americans shouldnrsquot call it the blues But if I sayhellip Seygalare orNdoondo or Mbowdi or Poyi Everyone here knows what that isrsquo13

Writing about uprooted populations on the borderlands of South Africa Mozambique andSwaziland Angela Impey observes that lsquosound song and the effect of music-making representa much under-utilised historical research resource particularly in contexts of spatial and socialrupturersquo (Impey 2008 33) lsquoPoyirsquo may well be such a resource a piece of musical archaeologysurviving in the oral tradition which has a bearing on the story of Mali and the blues

The quest for specific African sources of African-American musical genres is highly proble-matic (see Kubik 1999 22ndash23) In a 2007 interview for the American radio programme AfropopWorldwide Kubik whose book Africa and the Blues (1999) is the most comprehensive study todate emphasized the futility of looking for African roots of the blues

In African and African-American history as elsewhere in the world we have to operate from sourceswritten sources oral sources recorded sources if possible archaeological sources Where there are nosources there can be no safe conclusions lsquoRootsrsquo is too vague to be used beyond casual statementsthat such and such tradition is based on something somewhere For example all the talk about roots ofthe blues in Mali is just enough to satisfy the publicrsquos need for wild imagination But we want to knowwhich traditions by whom in Mali or elsewhere and in which time period ndash late 18th century ndash wererelevant as a background for the rise of blues in the US a century later Popular formulations such aslsquoFrom Mali to Mississippirsquo are anathema to historical studies(Gerhard Kubik interview with Banning Eyre on Afropop Worldwide 2007 AQ3 PBS radio)14

In an attempt to move beyond the publicrsquos lsquowild imaginationrsquo this article seeks to provide someanswers to Kubikrsquos three questions as follows

Journal of African Cultural Studies 5

185

190

195

200

205

210

215

220

225

(1) lsquowhich traditionsrsquo This article argues that Bamana jeli music is one tradition that has sofar been overlooked as a music which might well have fed into the early rural blues andbefore that slave banjo music Bamana music belongs to a wider regional style in centralMali overlapping with other neighbouring cultures such as those of the Fulbe andSoninke but it may have been the conduit by which such musical traits crossed the Atlan-tic with the slave trade

(2) lsquoplayed by whom in Malirsquo I suggest that the answer to this is the Bamana jeliw with tunessuch as lsquoPoyirsquo

(3) lsquoduring which time periodrsquo This question can be answered at a broad level by citing theBamana Segu Empire during the eighteenth century a time of intensive slave trade towhich the empire certainly contributed Not only did the Bamana Segu Empire thriveon slavery but it was ruled by former war captives (the Diarra lineage) from 1766 to1861 (Conrad 1990) But perhaps we can further narrow down the lsquowhich timersquo questionand even suggest a likely specific context in which this possible root of the blues wouldhave been played that is precisely around the many battles that were an intrinsic featureof life in Bamana Segu and that engendered vast numbers of slaves some of whom weresent across the Atlantic

While the epic recitations by Bamana jeliw with their vivid stories of Segursquos rulers ( faamaw) havebeen well documented from the point of view of their texts (Kesteloot Courlander DumestreConrad AQ68) the music which is equally steeped in the history and ethos of the region has stillnot been researched Bamana music is not included in Charryrsquos otherwise comprehensive studyof Mande music which focuses on Maninka and Mandinka traditions though he does acknowl-edge that lsquothe reign of the Bamana of Segu in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is animportant source of pieces for Malian musiciansrsquo (Charry 2000a 150) In addition there arevery few internationally available recordings either of Bamana music or of the ngograveniba its emble-matic instrument This general lack of source material no doubt explains why Bamana music hasbeen omitted in studies of the possible African antecedents of the blues It is only mentioned verybriefly in Kubikrsquos book Africa and the Blues (1999) which betrays a general lack of informationabout the styles from the middle Niger valley Yet Kubikrsquos instinct is to look for clues in preciselythis region referring to the music of Malirsquos griots as one lsquolikely candidate for early models thatwere still remembered by African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuryeventually becoming a factor in the development of the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 46) Kubik asks lsquohowsuch a ldquomemoryrdquo could have survived until the end of the nineteenth centuryrsquo (Kubik 1999 46italics in original) postulating that lsquowe are at least eighty years too late for reconstructing proto-blues forms On the other handrsquo he adds lsquothe absence of written sources testifying to suchmemory does not present a puzzlersquo (Kubik 1999 46)

lsquoPoyirsquo is perhaps one piece of that puzzle of memory and musical survival ndash from the otherside of the Atlantic (Figure 5)

The search for the roots of the blues

The search for the African roots of the blues has long been a subject of fascination to blues andAfrican music scholars (Charters Oliver Evans Kubik Coolen AQ69) as well as to American musi-cians of all sorts from blues and jazz to banjo players (too numerous to mention here) andmost recently film makers (for example Scorsesersquos Feel Like Going Home 2003 AQ4)

The Malian singer and guitarist Ali Farka Toureacute was the first to draw international awarenessto the similarities between traditional genres of Malirsquos northern desert and the blues resulting inthe label lsquodesert bluesrsquo coined in the early 1990s His Grammy-winning album Talkinrsquo Timbuktu

6 L Duraacuten

230

235

240

245

250

255

260

265

270

Figure 5 (a) Map of Mali showing Segou province Malirsquos fourth regionSource httpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileUn-malipng (b) Map of Segou region Garana is 2 kmeast of TamaniSource Macdonald et al (2011)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 7

275

280

285

290

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300

305

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315

in which he collaborated with American guitarist Ry Cooder captured the public imagination andwon him the epithet lsquoking of the desert bluesrsquo Toureacute himself rejected such descriptions howeverHe refuted the influence of the blues on his music claiming that it was the other way around Infact the excessive interest of Western journalists in his blues connection irritated Toureacute He wouldoften joke that for him blues meant doctors because doctors in Mali wore a blue uniform (per-sonal communication Nick Gold 2012 AQ5)

Toureacute was a farmer and not a griot ndash a guitarist and singer whose connection with music camefrom his grandmother Kounandi Samba a medium of the river spirits (Gibbal 1994 AQ6 68 Duraacuten1996) He was inspired by the ngograveni among other traditional instruments of the Niger valley andindeed his early recordings often featured the ngograveni or similar lutes played by griots from otherethnicities such as gambare played by Barou Sambarou a Soninke and the hoddu played byNassourou Sareacute a Fulani

Kubik who dedicates a large part of his Chapter 12 lsquoReturn to the western Sudanrsquo to a dis-cussion of Toureacute finds his music lsquoonly vaguely related to any type of bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 194)and questions whether Toureacutersquos lsquopersonal synthesis could be used to confirm pre-twentieth centuryhistorical connections [with the blues]rsquo (Kubik 1999 196) I would argue that there is only oneway of doing so which is to look at the local styles and songs that inspired him rather than seeingit as a lsquoblues derivativersquo15 Toureacute drew on a number of Malian styles his favourites were the onesfrom his region the bend of the Niger and the middle Niger valley

Some decades before Toureacute put Mali on the musical map of the blues Senegambia (particu-larly Wolof music) was considered a primary source of the blues first suggested by David Ames(Ames 1955) This argument was developed by Oliver in his pioneering book Savannah Synco-pators (1970 43ndash50) and then echoed by Charters (1974 AQ7 1981) Coolen (1982 1984 1991) andothers As Kubik points out the enormous success of Alex Haleyrsquos book and TV series Roots inthe late 1970s and early 1980s which places the Gambia at the centre of the story certainly stimu-lated the African-American imagination (Kubik 1999 188) Senegambia was an important sourceof plantation slaves in the Deep South (Coolen 1991) There are undeniable resemblancesbetween blues guitar fingering styles and the thumb and finger interlocked plucking techniqueson the Mandinka kora (Charry 2000a 178ndash189) Banjo enthusiasts have also put forwardother Senegambian string instruments such as the Jola long-necked lute called akonting as poss-ible antecedents to the blues16 and this connection has been explored most recently by the workof such banjo players as Bela Fleck on his 2010 Grammy awarded album Throw Down YourHeart

The lack of research on music from the middle Niger valley has however resulted in toonarrow a focus on particular regional traditions of savannah West Africa without settingthem in the wider context For example Coolen suggests the fodet a term used by Wolofxalam players for both tunings and generic accompaniments as a kind of template for theblues While not wrong fodet as a musical concept cannot be attributed solely to the Wolofsince similar concepts are shared by griots of neighbouring peoples all the way across themiddle Niger valley Also there is much oral evidence to show that many Wolof xalamkatstrace their ancestry to the Manden (the heartland of Mande culture in present-day westernMali and eastern Guinea) and a good part of their repertoire consists of well-known Mandejeli tunes like lsquoManga Yirarsquo lsquoAlfa Yayarsquo lsquoTutu Jararsquo and lsquoSunjatarsquo they even sing some ofthe choruses in Maninka not in their own language Wolof (see Charry 2000 AQ8

para 164 Duran

1981a)Kubik is sceptical about arguments for the Senegambia and instead gives

stronger weight to the central Sudanic region as one core area of provenance of some of the ruralbluesrsquo most characteristic traits the region from Mali across northern Ghana and northern Nigeriainto northern and central Cameroon rather than the westernmost geographical Sudan (Senegal

8 L Duraacuten

320

325

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335

340

345

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360

The Gambia) Other possible core areas include northern Guinea and the Sahel zone from Mali intoMauritania (Kubik 1999 69ndash70)

It is well documented that captives from Segu were sent across the Atlantic though not in largenumbers

Curtin estimated that 80 percent of the total slave exports to the NewWorld were transported between1710 and 1850 or roughly during the entire era of the Segu Bambara state Slaves from Segu destinedfor the Atlantic trade were probably sent to Senegambia and Sierra Leone Slaves from these tworegions accounted for only 10ndash15 percent of the total slave exports from 1701 to 1867 andBambara slaves constituted only a fraction of this total (Roberts 1987 17ndash18)

The Scots explorer Mungo Park attests to the common practice of slavery in his account of histravels through the Mande countryside in 1796 His Chapter 22 is an interesting first-handaccount of the various ways in which people became slaves mainly warfare but also insolvencyIn his diary entry for 18 July 1796 he writes lsquoI was met by a coffle of slaves about seventy innumber coming from Sego [sic]rsquo (Park 17971983 AQ9) There are numerous other sightings ofslaves throughout his travels

This is significant because as Kubik mentions lsquothe story of the Bambara rice cultivatorsbrought to Louisiana specifically for their technological expertize AQ70

para has opened up new

aspects of the fine meshes and economics of the slave trade and its huge networks into theinterior of the west central Sudanrsquo (Kubik 1999 70) Carneyrsquos rich study of what she metaphori-cally calls lsquoblack ricersquo shows that rice cultivation in the Western hemisphere was indeed intro-duced by Bamana slaves ndash mainly women who to this day are the principal rice cultivators ofthe region ndash and lsquodepended upon the diffusion of an entire cultural system from production toconsumptionrsquo (Carney 2001 165) Bamana slaves were lsquocentral to understanding Louisianahistoryrsquo (Eltis Morgan and Richardson 2007 1332) The banjo derived from WestAfrican lutes such as the ngograveni was one of the main instruments of Louisiana slaves(Conway 1995 59 AQ10

para)

In Kubikrsquos chapter entitled lsquoWhy did a west central Sudanic style cluster prevail in the bluesrsquohe points on the one hand to the numbers of slaves to the New World from this region during theeighteenth century

Senegal was part of the French slave trading network to Louisiana Eventually in the 19th centurysome of the descendants of deportees from Senegal Guinea and Mali ended up on farms in Missis-sippi and elsewhere in the Deep Southhellip the names of ethnic groups from the geographical Sudan (asfrom other parts of Africa) were well remembered in new Orleans into the nineteenth century thoughsometimes in the form of an interesting phonetic transfer into French For example Fulbe or lsquoFularsquobecame lsquopoulardrsquo (fat chicken) (Kubik 1999 96)

On the other hand Kubik comments that lsquoin a group of people thrown together by the hazards oflife even one person is enough to transmit esoteric knowledge that might later become theproperty of a majorityhellip in culture contact situations it often happens that minorities winrsquo(Kubik 1999 98) Applying that argument to a piece of music rather than a person onecould argue the case for lsquoPoyirsquo being recreated among slave communities in the Deep Southor at very least providing some key musical features that contributed to the foundation ofthe blues

Rather than either Old World folkways or New World environments we need to encompass both andbecome much more thoroughly Atlantichellip rather than frame the issue as solely one of transfers andconduits we should also think of transformations and overlapping circuits (Eltis Morgan andRichardson 2007 1332)

Here I am not arguing that Bamana jeli music was directly transplanted via the slave trade to theDeep South but that aspects of it stayed in the memory there during the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies though perhaps relived in lsquothoroughly Atlanticrsquo ways (Figure 6)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 9

365

370

375

380

385

390

395

400

405

lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

Colouronlin

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10 L Duraacuten

410

415

420

425

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435

440

445

450

aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

455

460

465

470

475

480

485

490

495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

Colouronlin

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inprint

Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

Colouronlin

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12 L Duraacuten

500

505

510

515

520

525

530

535

540

The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

545

550

555

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575

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585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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14 L Duraacuten

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noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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695

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705

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720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

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920

925

930

935

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945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

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1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

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inprint

Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

1105

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1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1155

1160

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1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

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1205

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

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1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

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1390

1395

(1) lsquowhich traditionsrsquo This article argues that Bamana jeli music is one tradition that has sofar been overlooked as a music which might well have fed into the early rural blues andbefore that slave banjo music Bamana music belongs to a wider regional style in centralMali overlapping with other neighbouring cultures such as those of the Fulbe andSoninke but it may have been the conduit by which such musical traits crossed the Atlan-tic with the slave trade

(2) lsquoplayed by whom in Malirsquo I suggest that the answer to this is the Bamana jeliw with tunessuch as lsquoPoyirsquo

(3) lsquoduring which time periodrsquo This question can be answered at a broad level by citing theBamana Segu Empire during the eighteenth century a time of intensive slave trade towhich the empire certainly contributed Not only did the Bamana Segu Empire thriveon slavery but it was ruled by former war captives (the Diarra lineage) from 1766 to1861 (Conrad 1990) But perhaps we can further narrow down the lsquowhich timersquo questionand even suggest a likely specific context in which this possible root of the blues wouldhave been played that is precisely around the many battles that were an intrinsic featureof life in Bamana Segu and that engendered vast numbers of slaves some of whom weresent across the Atlantic

While the epic recitations by Bamana jeliw with their vivid stories of Segursquos rulers ( faamaw) havebeen well documented from the point of view of their texts (Kesteloot Courlander DumestreConrad AQ68) the music which is equally steeped in the history and ethos of the region has stillnot been researched Bamana music is not included in Charryrsquos otherwise comprehensive studyof Mande music which focuses on Maninka and Mandinka traditions though he does acknowl-edge that lsquothe reign of the Bamana of Segu in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is animportant source of pieces for Malian musiciansrsquo (Charry 2000a 150) In addition there arevery few internationally available recordings either of Bamana music or of the ngograveniba its emble-matic instrument This general lack of source material no doubt explains why Bamana music hasbeen omitted in studies of the possible African antecedents of the blues It is only mentioned verybriefly in Kubikrsquos book Africa and the Blues (1999) which betrays a general lack of informationabout the styles from the middle Niger valley Yet Kubikrsquos instinct is to look for clues in preciselythis region referring to the music of Malirsquos griots as one lsquolikely candidate for early models thatwere still remembered by African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuryeventually becoming a factor in the development of the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 46) Kubik asks lsquohowsuch a ldquomemoryrdquo could have survived until the end of the nineteenth centuryrsquo (Kubik 1999 46italics in original) postulating that lsquowe are at least eighty years too late for reconstructing proto-blues forms On the other handrsquo he adds lsquothe absence of written sources testifying to suchmemory does not present a puzzlersquo (Kubik 1999 46)

lsquoPoyirsquo is perhaps one piece of that puzzle of memory and musical survival ndash from the otherside of the Atlantic (Figure 5)

The search for the roots of the blues

The search for the African roots of the blues has long been a subject of fascination to blues andAfrican music scholars (Charters Oliver Evans Kubik Coolen AQ69) as well as to American musi-cians of all sorts from blues and jazz to banjo players (too numerous to mention here) andmost recently film makers (for example Scorsesersquos Feel Like Going Home 2003 AQ4)

The Malian singer and guitarist Ali Farka Toureacute was the first to draw international awarenessto the similarities between traditional genres of Malirsquos northern desert and the blues resulting inthe label lsquodesert bluesrsquo coined in the early 1990s His Grammy-winning album Talkinrsquo Timbuktu

6 L Duraacuten

230

235

240

245

250

255

260

265

270

Figure 5 (a) Map of Mali showing Segou province Malirsquos fourth regionSource httpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileUn-malipng (b) Map of Segou region Garana is 2 kmeast of TamaniSource Macdonald et al (2011)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 7

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in which he collaborated with American guitarist Ry Cooder captured the public imagination andwon him the epithet lsquoking of the desert bluesrsquo Toureacute himself rejected such descriptions howeverHe refuted the influence of the blues on his music claiming that it was the other way around Infact the excessive interest of Western journalists in his blues connection irritated Toureacute He wouldoften joke that for him blues meant doctors because doctors in Mali wore a blue uniform (per-sonal communication Nick Gold 2012 AQ5)

Toureacute was a farmer and not a griot ndash a guitarist and singer whose connection with music camefrom his grandmother Kounandi Samba a medium of the river spirits (Gibbal 1994 AQ6 68 Duraacuten1996) He was inspired by the ngograveni among other traditional instruments of the Niger valley andindeed his early recordings often featured the ngograveni or similar lutes played by griots from otherethnicities such as gambare played by Barou Sambarou a Soninke and the hoddu played byNassourou Sareacute a Fulani

Kubik who dedicates a large part of his Chapter 12 lsquoReturn to the western Sudanrsquo to a dis-cussion of Toureacute finds his music lsquoonly vaguely related to any type of bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 194)and questions whether Toureacutersquos lsquopersonal synthesis could be used to confirm pre-twentieth centuryhistorical connections [with the blues]rsquo (Kubik 1999 196) I would argue that there is only oneway of doing so which is to look at the local styles and songs that inspired him rather than seeingit as a lsquoblues derivativersquo15 Toureacute drew on a number of Malian styles his favourites were the onesfrom his region the bend of the Niger and the middle Niger valley

Some decades before Toureacute put Mali on the musical map of the blues Senegambia (particu-larly Wolof music) was considered a primary source of the blues first suggested by David Ames(Ames 1955) This argument was developed by Oliver in his pioneering book Savannah Synco-pators (1970 43ndash50) and then echoed by Charters (1974 AQ7 1981) Coolen (1982 1984 1991) andothers As Kubik points out the enormous success of Alex Haleyrsquos book and TV series Roots inthe late 1970s and early 1980s which places the Gambia at the centre of the story certainly stimu-lated the African-American imagination (Kubik 1999 188) Senegambia was an important sourceof plantation slaves in the Deep South (Coolen 1991) There are undeniable resemblancesbetween blues guitar fingering styles and the thumb and finger interlocked plucking techniqueson the Mandinka kora (Charry 2000a 178ndash189) Banjo enthusiasts have also put forwardother Senegambian string instruments such as the Jola long-necked lute called akonting as poss-ible antecedents to the blues16 and this connection has been explored most recently by the workof such banjo players as Bela Fleck on his 2010 Grammy awarded album Throw Down YourHeart

The lack of research on music from the middle Niger valley has however resulted in toonarrow a focus on particular regional traditions of savannah West Africa without settingthem in the wider context For example Coolen suggests the fodet a term used by Wolofxalam players for both tunings and generic accompaniments as a kind of template for theblues While not wrong fodet as a musical concept cannot be attributed solely to the Wolofsince similar concepts are shared by griots of neighbouring peoples all the way across themiddle Niger valley Also there is much oral evidence to show that many Wolof xalamkatstrace their ancestry to the Manden (the heartland of Mande culture in present-day westernMali and eastern Guinea) and a good part of their repertoire consists of well-known Mandejeli tunes like lsquoManga Yirarsquo lsquoAlfa Yayarsquo lsquoTutu Jararsquo and lsquoSunjatarsquo they even sing some ofthe choruses in Maninka not in their own language Wolof (see Charry 2000 AQ8

para 164 Duran

1981a)Kubik is sceptical about arguments for the Senegambia and instead gives

stronger weight to the central Sudanic region as one core area of provenance of some of the ruralbluesrsquo most characteristic traits the region from Mali across northern Ghana and northern Nigeriainto northern and central Cameroon rather than the westernmost geographical Sudan (Senegal

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The Gambia) Other possible core areas include northern Guinea and the Sahel zone from Mali intoMauritania (Kubik 1999 69ndash70)

It is well documented that captives from Segu were sent across the Atlantic though not in largenumbers

Curtin estimated that 80 percent of the total slave exports to the NewWorld were transported between1710 and 1850 or roughly during the entire era of the Segu Bambara state Slaves from Segu destinedfor the Atlantic trade were probably sent to Senegambia and Sierra Leone Slaves from these tworegions accounted for only 10ndash15 percent of the total slave exports from 1701 to 1867 andBambara slaves constituted only a fraction of this total (Roberts 1987 17ndash18)

The Scots explorer Mungo Park attests to the common practice of slavery in his account of histravels through the Mande countryside in 1796 His Chapter 22 is an interesting first-handaccount of the various ways in which people became slaves mainly warfare but also insolvencyIn his diary entry for 18 July 1796 he writes lsquoI was met by a coffle of slaves about seventy innumber coming from Sego [sic]rsquo (Park 17971983 AQ9) There are numerous other sightings ofslaves throughout his travels

This is significant because as Kubik mentions lsquothe story of the Bambara rice cultivatorsbrought to Louisiana specifically for their technological expertize AQ70

para has opened up new

aspects of the fine meshes and economics of the slave trade and its huge networks into theinterior of the west central Sudanrsquo (Kubik 1999 70) Carneyrsquos rich study of what she metaphori-cally calls lsquoblack ricersquo shows that rice cultivation in the Western hemisphere was indeed intro-duced by Bamana slaves ndash mainly women who to this day are the principal rice cultivators ofthe region ndash and lsquodepended upon the diffusion of an entire cultural system from production toconsumptionrsquo (Carney 2001 165) Bamana slaves were lsquocentral to understanding Louisianahistoryrsquo (Eltis Morgan and Richardson 2007 1332) The banjo derived from WestAfrican lutes such as the ngograveni was one of the main instruments of Louisiana slaves(Conway 1995 59 AQ10

para)

In Kubikrsquos chapter entitled lsquoWhy did a west central Sudanic style cluster prevail in the bluesrsquohe points on the one hand to the numbers of slaves to the New World from this region during theeighteenth century

Senegal was part of the French slave trading network to Louisiana Eventually in the 19th centurysome of the descendants of deportees from Senegal Guinea and Mali ended up on farms in Missis-sippi and elsewhere in the Deep Southhellip the names of ethnic groups from the geographical Sudan (asfrom other parts of Africa) were well remembered in new Orleans into the nineteenth century thoughsometimes in the form of an interesting phonetic transfer into French For example Fulbe or lsquoFularsquobecame lsquopoulardrsquo (fat chicken) (Kubik 1999 96)

On the other hand Kubik comments that lsquoin a group of people thrown together by the hazards oflife even one person is enough to transmit esoteric knowledge that might later become theproperty of a majorityhellip in culture contact situations it often happens that minorities winrsquo(Kubik 1999 98) Applying that argument to a piece of music rather than a person onecould argue the case for lsquoPoyirsquo being recreated among slave communities in the Deep Southor at very least providing some key musical features that contributed to the foundation ofthe blues

Rather than either Old World folkways or New World environments we need to encompass both andbecome much more thoroughly Atlantichellip rather than frame the issue as solely one of transfers andconduits we should also think of transformations and overlapping circuits (Eltis Morgan andRichardson 2007 1332)

Here I am not arguing that Bamana jeli music was directly transplanted via the slave trade to theDeep South but that aspects of it stayed in the memory there during the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies though perhaps relived in lsquothoroughly Atlanticrsquo ways (Figure 6)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 9

365

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380

385

390

395

400

405

lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

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aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

455

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465

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480

485

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495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

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Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

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540

The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

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555

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575

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585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

735

740

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755

760

765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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20 L Duraacuten

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865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

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1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

1180

1185

1190

1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

1220

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1245

1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

1315

1320

1325

1330

1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

Figure 5 (a) Map of Mali showing Segou province Malirsquos fourth regionSource httpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileUn-malipng (b) Map of Segou region Garana is 2 kmeast of TamaniSource Macdonald et al (2011)

Colouronlin

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inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 7

275

280

285

290

295

300

305

310

315

in which he collaborated with American guitarist Ry Cooder captured the public imagination andwon him the epithet lsquoking of the desert bluesrsquo Toureacute himself rejected such descriptions howeverHe refuted the influence of the blues on his music claiming that it was the other way around Infact the excessive interest of Western journalists in his blues connection irritated Toureacute He wouldoften joke that for him blues meant doctors because doctors in Mali wore a blue uniform (per-sonal communication Nick Gold 2012 AQ5)

Toureacute was a farmer and not a griot ndash a guitarist and singer whose connection with music camefrom his grandmother Kounandi Samba a medium of the river spirits (Gibbal 1994 AQ6 68 Duraacuten1996) He was inspired by the ngograveni among other traditional instruments of the Niger valley andindeed his early recordings often featured the ngograveni or similar lutes played by griots from otherethnicities such as gambare played by Barou Sambarou a Soninke and the hoddu played byNassourou Sareacute a Fulani

Kubik who dedicates a large part of his Chapter 12 lsquoReturn to the western Sudanrsquo to a dis-cussion of Toureacute finds his music lsquoonly vaguely related to any type of bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 194)and questions whether Toureacutersquos lsquopersonal synthesis could be used to confirm pre-twentieth centuryhistorical connections [with the blues]rsquo (Kubik 1999 196) I would argue that there is only oneway of doing so which is to look at the local styles and songs that inspired him rather than seeingit as a lsquoblues derivativersquo15 Toureacute drew on a number of Malian styles his favourites were the onesfrom his region the bend of the Niger and the middle Niger valley

Some decades before Toureacute put Mali on the musical map of the blues Senegambia (particu-larly Wolof music) was considered a primary source of the blues first suggested by David Ames(Ames 1955) This argument was developed by Oliver in his pioneering book Savannah Synco-pators (1970 43ndash50) and then echoed by Charters (1974 AQ7 1981) Coolen (1982 1984 1991) andothers As Kubik points out the enormous success of Alex Haleyrsquos book and TV series Roots inthe late 1970s and early 1980s which places the Gambia at the centre of the story certainly stimu-lated the African-American imagination (Kubik 1999 188) Senegambia was an important sourceof plantation slaves in the Deep South (Coolen 1991) There are undeniable resemblancesbetween blues guitar fingering styles and the thumb and finger interlocked plucking techniqueson the Mandinka kora (Charry 2000a 178ndash189) Banjo enthusiasts have also put forwardother Senegambian string instruments such as the Jola long-necked lute called akonting as poss-ible antecedents to the blues16 and this connection has been explored most recently by the workof such banjo players as Bela Fleck on his 2010 Grammy awarded album Throw Down YourHeart

The lack of research on music from the middle Niger valley has however resulted in toonarrow a focus on particular regional traditions of savannah West Africa without settingthem in the wider context For example Coolen suggests the fodet a term used by Wolofxalam players for both tunings and generic accompaniments as a kind of template for theblues While not wrong fodet as a musical concept cannot be attributed solely to the Wolofsince similar concepts are shared by griots of neighbouring peoples all the way across themiddle Niger valley Also there is much oral evidence to show that many Wolof xalamkatstrace their ancestry to the Manden (the heartland of Mande culture in present-day westernMali and eastern Guinea) and a good part of their repertoire consists of well-known Mandejeli tunes like lsquoManga Yirarsquo lsquoAlfa Yayarsquo lsquoTutu Jararsquo and lsquoSunjatarsquo they even sing some ofthe choruses in Maninka not in their own language Wolof (see Charry 2000 AQ8

para 164 Duran

1981a)Kubik is sceptical about arguments for the Senegambia and instead gives

stronger weight to the central Sudanic region as one core area of provenance of some of the ruralbluesrsquo most characteristic traits the region from Mali across northern Ghana and northern Nigeriainto northern and central Cameroon rather than the westernmost geographical Sudan (Senegal

8 L Duraacuten

320

325

330

335

340

345

350

355

360

The Gambia) Other possible core areas include northern Guinea and the Sahel zone from Mali intoMauritania (Kubik 1999 69ndash70)

It is well documented that captives from Segu were sent across the Atlantic though not in largenumbers

Curtin estimated that 80 percent of the total slave exports to the NewWorld were transported between1710 and 1850 or roughly during the entire era of the Segu Bambara state Slaves from Segu destinedfor the Atlantic trade were probably sent to Senegambia and Sierra Leone Slaves from these tworegions accounted for only 10ndash15 percent of the total slave exports from 1701 to 1867 andBambara slaves constituted only a fraction of this total (Roberts 1987 17ndash18)

The Scots explorer Mungo Park attests to the common practice of slavery in his account of histravels through the Mande countryside in 1796 His Chapter 22 is an interesting first-handaccount of the various ways in which people became slaves mainly warfare but also insolvencyIn his diary entry for 18 July 1796 he writes lsquoI was met by a coffle of slaves about seventy innumber coming from Sego [sic]rsquo (Park 17971983 AQ9) There are numerous other sightings ofslaves throughout his travels

This is significant because as Kubik mentions lsquothe story of the Bambara rice cultivatorsbrought to Louisiana specifically for their technological expertize AQ70

para has opened up new

aspects of the fine meshes and economics of the slave trade and its huge networks into theinterior of the west central Sudanrsquo (Kubik 1999 70) Carneyrsquos rich study of what she metaphori-cally calls lsquoblack ricersquo shows that rice cultivation in the Western hemisphere was indeed intro-duced by Bamana slaves ndash mainly women who to this day are the principal rice cultivators ofthe region ndash and lsquodepended upon the diffusion of an entire cultural system from production toconsumptionrsquo (Carney 2001 165) Bamana slaves were lsquocentral to understanding Louisianahistoryrsquo (Eltis Morgan and Richardson 2007 1332) The banjo derived from WestAfrican lutes such as the ngograveni was one of the main instruments of Louisiana slaves(Conway 1995 59 AQ10

para)

In Kubikrsquos chapter entitled lsquoWhy did a west central Sudanic style cluster prevail in the bluesrsquohe points on the one hand to the numbers of slaves to the New World from this region during theeighteenth century

Senegal was part of the French slave trading network to Louisiana Eventually in the 19th centurysome of the descendants of deportees from Senegal Guinea and Mali ended up on farms in Missis-sippi and elsewhere in the Deep Southhellip the names of ethnic groups from the geographical Sudan (asfrom other parts of Africa) were well remembered in new Orleans into the nineteenth century thoughsometimes in the form of an interesting phonetic transfer into French For example Fulbe or lsquoFularsquobecame lsquopoulardrsquo (fat chicken) (Kubik 1999 96)

On the other hand Kubik comments that lsquoin a group of people thrown together by the hazards oflife even one person is enough to transmit esoteric knowledge that might later become theproperty of a majorityhellip in culture contact situations it often happens that minorities winrsquo(Kubik 1999 98) Applying that argument to a piece of music rather than a person onecould argue the case for lsquoPoyirsquo being recreated among slave communities in the Deep Southor at very least providing some key musical features that contributed to the foundation ofthe blues

Rather than either Old World folkways or New World environments we need to encompass both andbecome much more thoroughly Atlantichellip rather than frame the issue as solely one of transfers andconduits we should also think of transformations and overlapping circuits (Eltis Morgan andRichardson 2007 1332)

Here I am not arguing that Bamana jeli music was directly transplanted via the slave trade to theDeep South but that aspects of it stayed in the memory there during the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies though perhaps relived in lsquothoroughly Atlanticrsquo ways (Figure 6)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 9

365

370

375

380

385

390

395

400

405

lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

10 L Duraacuten

410

415

420

425

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435

440

445

450

aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

455

460

465

470

475

480

485

490

495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

12 L Duraacuten

500

505

510

515

520

525

530

535

540

The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

545

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555

560

565

570

575

580

585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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695

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705

710

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720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

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750

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

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775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

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1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

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where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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1205

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1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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1230

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1250

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

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1385

1390

1395

in which he collaborated with American guitarist Ry Cooder captured the public imagination andwon him the epithet lsquoking of the desert bluesrsquo Toureacute himself rejected such descriptions howeverHe refuted the influence of the blues on his music claiming that it was the other way around Infact the excessive interest of Western journalists in his blues connection irritated Toureacute He wouldoften joke that for him blues meant doctors because doctors in Mali wore a blue uniform (per-sonal communication Nick Gold 2012 AQ5)

Toureacute was a farmer and not a griot ndash a guitarist and singer whose connection with music camefrom his grandmother Kounandi Samba a medium of the river spirits (Gibbal 1994 AQ6 68 Duraacuten1996) He was inspired by the ngograveni among other traditional instruments of the Niger valley andindeed his early recordings often featured the ngograveni or similar lutes played by griots from otherethnicities such as gambare played by Barou Sambarou a Soninke and the hoddu played byNassourou Sareacute a Fulani

Kubik who dedicates a large part of his Chapter 12 lsquoReturn to the western Sudanrsquo to a dis-cussion of Toureacute finds his music lsquoonly vaguely related to any type of bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 194)and questions whether Toureacutersquos lsquopersonal synthesis could be used to confirm pre-twentieth centuryhistorical connections [with the blues]rsquo (Kubik 1999 196) I would argue that there is only oneway of doing so which is to look at the local styles and songs that inspired him rather than seeingit as a lsquoblues derivativersquo15 Toureacute drew on a number of Malian styles his favourites were the onesfrom his region the bend of the Niger and the middle Niger valley

Some decades before Toureacute put Mali on the musical map of the blues Senegambia (particu-larly Wolof music) was considered a primary source of the blues first suggested by David Ames(Ames 1955) This argument was developed by Oliver in his pioneering book Savannah Synco-pators (1970 43ndash50) and then echoed by Charters (1974 AQ7 1981) Coolen (1982 1984 1991) andothers As Kubik points out the enormous success of Alex Haleyrsquos book and TV series Roots inthe late 1970s and early 1980s which places the Gambia at the centre of the story certainly stimu-lated the African-American imagination (Kubik 1999 188) Senegambia was an important sourceof plantation slaves in the Deep South (Coolen 1991) There are undeniable resemblancesbetween blues guitar fingering styles and the thumb and finger interlocked plucking techniqueson the Mandinka kora (Charry 2000a 178ndash189) Banjo enthusiasts have also put forwardother Senegambian string instruments such as the Jola long-necked lute called akonting as poss-ible antecedents to the blues16 and this connection has been explored most recently by the workof such banjo players as Bela Fleck on his 2010 Grammy awarded album Throw Down YourHeart

The lack of research on music from the middle Niger valley has however resulted in toonarrow a focus on particular regional traditions of savannah West Africa without settingthem in the wider context For example Coolen suggests the fodet a term used by Wolofxalam players for both tunings and generic accompaniments as a kind of template for theblues While not wrong fodet as a musical concept cannot be attributed solely to the Wolofsince similar concepts are shared by griots of neighbouring peoples all the way across themiddle Niger valley Also there is much oral evidence to show that many Wolof xalamkatstrace their ancestry to the Manden (the heartland of Mande culture in present-day westernMali and eastern Guinea) and a good part of their repertoire consists of well-known Mandejeli tunes like lsquoManga Yirarsquo lsquoAlfa Yayarsquo lsquoTutu Jararsquo and lsquoSunjatarsquo they even sing some ofthe choruses in Maninka not in their own language Wolof (see Charry 2000 AQ8

para 164 Duran

1981a)Kubik is sceptical about arguments for the Senegambia and instead gives

stronger weight to the central Sudanic region as one core area of provenance of some of the ruralbluesrsquo most characteristic traits the region from Mali across northern Ghana and northern Nigeriainto northern and central Cameroon rather than the westernmost geographical Sudan (Senegal

8 L Duraacuten

320

325

330

335

340

345

350

355

360

The Gambia) Other possible core areas include northern Guinea and the Sahel zone from Mali intoMauritania (Kubik 1999 69ndash70)

It is well documented that captives from Segu were sent across the Atlantic though not in largenumbers

Curtin estimated that 80 percent of the total slave exports to the NewWorld were transported between1710 and 1850 or roughly during the entire era of the Segu Bambara state Slaves from Segu destinedfor the Atlantic trade were probably sent to Senegambia and Sierra Leone Slaves from these tworegions accounted for only 10ndash15 percent of the total slave exports from 1701 to 1867 andBambara slaves constituted only a fraction of this total (Roberts 1987 17ndash18)

The Scots explorer Mungo Park attests to the common practice of slavery in his account of histravels through the Mande countryside in 1796 His Chapter 22 is an interesting first-handaccount of the various ways in which people became slaves mainly warfare but also insolvencyIn his diary entry for 18 July 1796 he writes lsquoI was met by a coffle of slaves about seventy innumber coming from Sego [sic]rsquo (Park 17971983 AQ9) There are numerous other sightings ofslaves throughout his travels

This is significant because as Kubik mentions lsquothe story of the Bambara rice cultivatorsbrought to Louisiana specifically for their technological expertize AQ70

para has opened up new

aspects of the fine meshes and economics of the slave trade and its huge networks into theinterior of the west central Sudanrsquo (Kubik 1999 70) Carneyrsquos rich study of what she metaphori-cally calls lsquoblack ricersquo shows that rice cultivation in the Western hemisphere was indeed intro-duced by Bamana slaves ndash mainly women who to this day are the principal rice cultivators ofthe region ndash and lsquodepended upon the diffusion of an entire cultural system from production toconsumptionrsquo (Carney 2001 165) Bamana slaves were lsquocentral to understanding Louisianahistoryrsquo (Eltis Morgan and Richardson 2007 1332) The banjo derived from WestAfrican lutes such as the ngograveni was one of the main instruments of Louisiana slaves(Conway 1995 59 AQ10

para)

In Kubikrsquos chapter entitled lsquoWhy did a west central Sudanic style cluster prevail in the bluesrsquohe points on the one hand to the numbers of slaves to the New World from this region during theeighteenth century

Senegal was part of the French slave trading network to Louisiana Eventually in the 19th centurysome of the descendants of deportees from Senegal Guinea and Mali ended up on farms in Missis-sippi and elsewhere in the Deep Southhellip the names of ethnic groups from the geographical Sudan (asfrom other parts of Africa) were well remembered in new Orleans into the nineteenth century thoughsometimes in the form of an interesting phonetic transfer into French For example Fulbe or lsquoFularsquobecame lsquopoulardrsquo (fat chicken) (Kubik 1999 96)

On the other hand Kubik comments that lsquoin a group of people thrown together by the hazards oflife even one person is enough to transmit esoteric knowledge that might later become theproperty of a majorityhellip in culture contact situations it often happens that minorities winrsquo(Kubik 1999 98) Applying that argument to a piece of music rather than a person onecould argue the case for lsquoPoyirsquo being recreated among slave communities in the Deep Southor at very least providing some key musical features that contributed to the foundation ofthe blues

Rather than either Old World folkways or New World environments we need to encompass both andbecome much more thoroughly Atlantichellip rather than frame the issue as solely one of transfers andconduits we should also think of transformations and overlapping circuits (Eltis Morgan andRichardson 2007 1332)

Here I am not arguing that Bamana jeli music was directly transplanted via the slave trade to theDeep South but that aspects of it stayed in the memory there during the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies though perhaps relived in lsquothoroughly Atlanticrsquo ways (Figure 6)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 9

365

370

375

380

385

390

395

400

405

lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

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aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

455

460

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485

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495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

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Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

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The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

545

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555

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As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

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645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

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One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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955

960

965

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

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1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

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1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

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1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1135

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1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

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1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

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1320

1325

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1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

The Gambia) Other possible core areas include northern Guinea and the Sahel zone from Mali intoMauritania (Kubik 1999 69ndash70)

It is well documented that captives from Segu were sent across the Atlantic though not in largenumbers

Curtin estimated that 80 percent of the total slave exports to the NewWorld were transported between1710 and 1850 or roughly during the entire era of the Segu Bambara state Slaves from Segu destinedfor the Atlantic trade were probably sent to Senegambia and Sierra Leone Slaves from these tworegions accounted for only 10ndash15 percent of the total slave exports from 1701 to 1867 andBambara slaves constituted only a fraction of this total (Roberts 1987 17ndash18)

The Scots explorer Mungo Park attests to the common practice of slavery in his account of histravels through the Mande countryside in 1796 His Chapter 22 is an interesting first-handaccount of the various ways in which people became slaves mainly warfare but also insolvencyIn his diary entry for 18 July 1796 he writes lsquoI was met by a coffle of slaves about seventy innumber coming from Sego [sic]rsquo (Park 17971983 AQ9) There are numerous other sightings ofslaves throughout his travels

This is significant because as Kubik mentions lsquothe story of the Bambara rice cultivatorsbrought to Louisiana specifically for their technological expertize AQ70

para has opened up new

aspects of the fine meshes and economics of the slave trade and its huge networks into theinterior of the west central Sudanrsquo (Kubik 1999 70) Carneyrsquos rich study of what she metaphori-cally calls lsquoblack ricersquo shows that rice cultivation in the Western hemisphere was indeed intro-duced by Bamana slaves ndash mainly women who to this day are the principal rice cultivators ofthe region ndash and lsquodepended upon the diffusion of an entire cultural system from production toconsumptionrsquo (Carney 2001 165) Bamana slaves were lsquocentral to understanding Louisianahistoryrsquo (Eltis Morgan and Richardson 2007 1332) The banjo derived from WestAfrican lutes such as the ngograveni was one of the main instruments of Louisiana slaves(Conway 1995 59 AQ10

para)

In Kubikrsquos chapter entitled lsquoWhy did a west central Sudanic style cluster prevail in the bluesrsquohe points on the one hand to the numbers of slaves to the New World from this region during theeighteenth century

Senegal was part of the French slave trading network to Louisiana Eventually in the 19th centurysome of the descendants of deportees from Senegal Guinea and Mali ended up on farms in Missis-sippi and elsewhere in the Deep Southhellip the names of ethnic groups from the geographical Sudan (asfrom other parts of Africa) were well remembered in new Orleans into the nineteenth century thoughsometimes in the form of an interesting phonetic transfer into French For example Fulbe or lsquoFularsquobecame lsquopoulardrsquo (fat chicken) (Kubik 1999 96)

On the other hand Kubik comments that lsquoin a group of people thrown together by the hazards oflife even one person is enough to transmit esoteric knowledge that might later become theproperty of a majorityhellip in culture contact situations it often happens that minorities winrsquo(Kubik 1999 98) Applying that argument to a piece of music rather than a person onecould argue the case for lsquoPoyirsquo being recreated among slave communities in the Deep Southor at very least providing some key musical features that contributed to the foundation ofthe blues

Rather than either Old World folkways or New World environments we need to encompass both andbecome much more thoroughly Atlantichellip rather than frame the issue as solely one of transfers andconduits we should also think of transformations and overlapping circuits (Eltis Morgan andRichardson 2007 1332)

Here I am not arguing that Bamana jeli music was directly transplanted via the slave trade to theDeep South but that aspects of it stayed in the memory there during the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies though perhaps relived in lsquothoroughly Atlanticrsquo ways (Figure 6)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 9

365

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375

380

385

390

395

400

405

lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

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10 L Duraacuten

410

415

420

425

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435

440

445

450

aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

455

460

465

470

475

480

485

490

495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

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inprint

Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

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12 L Duraacuten

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530

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540

The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

545

550

555

560

565

570

575

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585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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14 L Duraacuten

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605

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630

noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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685

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695

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705

710

715

720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

735

740

745

750

755

760

765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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20 L Duraacuten

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865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

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1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

1180

1185

1190

1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

1220

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1245

1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

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1365

1370

1375

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1385

1390

1395

lsquoFlooding the ears of their heartsrsquo17 the Bamana of Segu

A few salient facts about the Bamana are required here as this provides the historical backdrop forhow and why their music plays a part in the story of the blues The Bamana are a Mande people inthe middle Niger with a complex historical and ethnic makeup They rose to power during one ofMalirsquos last pre-colonial and non-Islamic empires known as Segu 1712ndash1861 The name Bamanaalso refers to the language (known as Bamanan or Bamanankan) spoken throughout the south ofthe country in some cases as a mother tongue by many who would not consider themselves eth-nically Bamana for example the sedentary populations of Fulbe descent living in the regions ofWasulu and of Brigo in southwest Mali Also the term is often used generically to describe theMande peoples of Mali in general ndash including the Maninka the Wasulunke and Khassonke

This section refers specifically to the Bamana of historical Segu and the representation oflsquoBamanayarsquo (what it is to be Bamana) in Bamana jeli song lyrics of today as represented inlive performance and recordings These songs are usually short and tend to be based on oneepisode or character in the story of Segu it is extremely rare to hear full-length recitations18

such as those of Tayiru Banbera Nevertheless these songs with their catchy pentatonic tunesand slow swinging 68 rhythms keep alive the stories of the Segu era with their chivalry and gore

lsquoSegu is not a cosy storyrsquo comments Bassekou Kouyateacute drawing on oral traditions he heard asa child from both his father Moustapha Kouyateacute and his maternal grandfather one of Malirsquos mosticonic jeliw of the post-independence era Banzoumana Sissoko lsquothe Old Lionrsquo (c 1890ndash1987)lsquoLove does not play a role in this There was the cult of bravery There was no fear of deathbecause if you were a coward you couldnrsquot marry your family would reject you ndash so it wasbetter to diersquo (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2006)

Bamana jeli songs glorify animist belief and practice such as the consuming of alcohol andthe worship of shrines containing boliw (power objects) They tell of the customs around warfaresuch as the feasts (maa nyegravenajegrave) held on the eve of battle outside the walls of the town to be

Figure 6 Segou countryside near Garana January 2011 The Bamana are farmersSource AQ79

Colouronlin

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415

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425

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435

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445

450

aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

455

460

465

470

475

480

485

490

495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

Colouronlin

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12 L Duraacuten

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540

The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

545

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555

560

565

570

575

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585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

Colouronlin

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14 L Duraacuten

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noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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695

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705

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720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

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740

745

750

755

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

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775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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20 L Duraacuten

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865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

950

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965

970

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980

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

1045

1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

1105

1110

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1120

1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

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1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

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1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

aggressed in which both sides participated consuming large quantities of capalo beer made frommillet19 They recount the exploits of the togravenjograven the dreaded slave army who regularly lootedvillages and stole women some of whom would be given to jeliw as wives20 The togravenjograven evenhad their own togravenjograven dance with humorously grotesque gestures designed to both amuse andterrify

The history of Bamana Segu described as lsquoa state of intriguersquo (Conrad 1990) has been welldocumented Much of what we know about this late pre-colonial period of Malirsquos history comesfrom the recitation of oral epics by Bamana jeliw published in numerous transcriptions andtranslations These focus on the esoteric power of one or two rulers (especially Da MonzonDiarra 1808ndash1827) and warriors (such as Bakari Jan Koneacute) The most detailed of these is aline-by-line transcription of performances by Tayiru Banbera (Conrad 1990 Banbera1998) and constitutes lsquoone of the longest epics recorded in Africarsquo (Johnson Hale andBelcher 1997 34)21

Conrad describes the Bamana of Segu as lsquoa society famous for maintaining its traditional cul-tural values and characterized by a wide range of secret ritual methods of tapping into spiritualsources of protection and powerrsquo (Conrad 1998 AQ11 1001) The Bamana resisted Islam in a seriesof confrontations with Fulbe armies until finally defeated in 1861 by Al-Hajj Umar Tall aFulani warrior cleric22 Instead they had their own lsquocomplex cosmogony that included asupreme creator and a pantheon of less deitieshellip the carrying out of the most serious ofhellipduties often required the use of a ritual object called a boli which focused as a locus of sacrificeperformed as a means of calling upon and influencing the vital spiritual force known as nyamarsquo(Conrad 1990 3)

Founded by Biton Mamary Coulibaly (1712ndash1755) the Bamana Empire was built on militaryconquest with thousands of war captives that contributed to a vast and productive slavepopulation lsquoWarfare was an inseparable component of the political economy of theMiddle Niger valley Capturing slaves and conquering territory were its clearest expressionsrsquo(Roberts 1987 17) Segursquos rulers entitled faama derived power from the togravenjograven a voluntaryassociation comprised of men from all levels of society (noble to servile) which was Segursquosarmy (Figure 7)

The death of Biton Coulibaly was followed by a period of anarchy (1757ndash1766) with succes-sive rule by three former war captives until a fourth Ngolo Diarra (1766ndash1787) founded adynasty that lasted until 1861 His grandson Da Monzon Diarra (ruled 1808ndash1827) is the mostcelebrated of the Segu rulers remembered and revered by Bamana jeliw for his power wealthruthlessness and generosity with the jeliw

Da was not a ruler to be trifled with oral tradition has it that Da had only one eye and there-fore no one in the land could pronounce the word lsquoonersquo without risk of being beheaded Theopening chorus of the song dedicated to Da Monzon says lsquoAsk Da If a poor man even mentionsthe name of the faama [ruler] hersquoll be sold for the price of one barrel of beerrsquo23 showing that hevalued alcohol more than human life (Figure 8)

The linking of music with esoteric power (nyama) is common to all Mande jeli culture ndash andalso the blues24 Many jeliw express the view that the regional traditions of Bamana Segu aredeeply infused with ngaraya or musical mastery which in turn carries high levels of nyamaThere is also the view expressed by some elder jeliw that it is more lsquoauthenticrsquo less commercialand has greater depth than the Maninka styles that were popularized in the capital from the late1970s onwards (Duran 2007b)

The consumption of alcohol during the Segu era is one of the themes of the Segu repertoireTayiru Banbera one of the great Bamana jeliw of the twentieth century was a lsquodevout Muslimrsquo

(Conrad 1990 7) but his descriptions are full of irreverent humourThis is what the Bamana beer drinkers say

Journal of African Cultural Studies 11

455

460

465

470

475

480

485

490

495

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

Colouronlin

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inprint

Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

Colouronlin

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12 L Duraacuten

500

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515

520

525

530

535

540

The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

545

550

555

560

565

570

575

580

585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

14 L Duraacuten

590

595

600

605

610

615

620

625

630

noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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685

690

695

700

705

710

715

720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

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740

745

750

755

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

770

775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

Colouronlin

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20 L Duraacuten

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865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

950

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965

970

975

980

985

990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

1045

1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

1090

1095

1100

1105

1110

1115

1120

1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

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instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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1205

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1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

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1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

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1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

Figure 7 The tomb of Biton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire in Sekoro (old Segou) next to arecent reconstruction of his palace with its seven vestibules 2011Source AQ71

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Figure 8 Mud-dye (bogravegogravelan) cloth depicting some of the major characters connected with nineteenth-century Malian history (upper row) European travellers and colonizers including Mungo Park andGeneral Achinard and (lower row) pre-colonial warlords and rulers including (second from right) DaMonzon Note his one eyeSource Segou market (2003)

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540

The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

545

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555

560

565

570

575

580

585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

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14 L Duraacuten

590

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600

605

610

615

620

625

630

noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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695

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705

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720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

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740

745

750

755

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

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775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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20 L Duraacuten

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865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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980

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

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1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

1045

1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

1105

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1120

1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

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1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

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resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

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1395

The marabout of the east says not to drink for it is badThe marabout of the west says there is no harm in drinkingThere are two different opinionsBut while the marabouts argue about the differenceLet us drink and forget about the thirst of the worldWhat they are talking about is laharaWe have not been thereWe know nothing about itWe will not give up our habit to wait for thatLet us get drunkThe Bamana drink so much that they flood the ears of their hearts(Conrad 1990 175 lines 3137ndash3148)

To this day the Bamana are known for their relaxed attitude towards Islam and there are (or wereuntil the time of writing) many places that openly brew and sell capalo even in Bamako ndash placeswhere Bamana and other peoples from around Segou mainly of the older generation go to meetand socialize and reaffirm their regional identities

All this contributes to the people of Segou or lsquoSegoviansrsquo as they are known locally having acertain reputation in Mali Tayiru Banbera recites

everybody who comes to power in Maliif it is said that he comes from Seguhe will be feared (Conrad 1990 128)

And Conrad comments

regardless of where the person in power actually comes from this expression labels him as shrewd oreven ruthless It might be said lsquoso-and-sorsquos wife is from Segursquo meaning she dominates her husbandSimilarly if it is said that someone gave you lsquoSegu porridgersquohellip it means they outwitted you at some-thing (Conrad 1990 128)

In February 2006 as part of our preliminary research for his album Bassekou took me to visit thetomb of Da Monzon which is located in Banankoroba a village a few kilometres east of Segou Itwas a simple vaulted grave made of cement located inside the courtyard of a house under thecustody of familywhose surname ndash ironically ndash is Coulibaly Bassekou forwhomDaMonzon sym-bolizes the essence of Bamanaya took his ngograveniba out of its case knelt down by the grave and in asolemn fashion began playing Da Monzonrsquos fasa (praise song) over which he declaimed

I say now to my great grandfatherrsquos king ndash he was such a great warrior right from the beginning to theend of his life no-one trod on his foot No one dared look him in the eye and say no I praise him for allthe great things he did for us jeliw He used to give us cows horses slaves He used to capture a villageand give the whole village to one jeli With Da Monzon no jeli was ever hungry Thatrsquos what I praisehim for And he said two things to them He said lsquoWhen I die my jeliw will leave because no otherking can support them like I did And there will never be another good Bamana king after me I will bethe lastrsquo And no other king was a true Bamana like he was Being a true Bamana means never cheat-ing with another manrsquos wife It also means giving onersquos word and never taking it back ndash if a Bamanasays lsquoI will do thisrsquo he will do it And a true Bamana will always be prepared to die for his honour25

(Figure 9)

In subsequent discussion Bassekou explained that these were the kinds of words that DaMonzon would want to hear at his grave even if he Bassekou as a man of the twenty-firstcentury abhorred the idea of slavery and warfare

Journal of African Cultural Studies 13

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555

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565

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575

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585

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

Colouronlin

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inprint

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590

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630

noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

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645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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715

720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

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750

755

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

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775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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20 L Duraacuten

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865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

950

955

960

965

970

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980

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

1045

1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

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1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

1180

1185

1190

1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

As we left the grave I asked the custodian Mr Coulibaly how he felt about being entrustedwith care of the grave of the Diara lineage who had wrested power from the his own ancestorBiton Mamary Coulibaly founder of the Segu Empire lsquoIf Da Monzon had power itrsquos onlybecause we the Coulibaly lineage lent it to himrsquo was his reply

The concept of betrayal ( janfa) in Segu was specifically linked to the act of breaking onersquosword or reneging on a mutual agreement (Dumestre 1979 235) In the words of Tayiru Banbera

If a noble swore an oath they would say lsquoI am seriousrsquoIt is the word of a nobleThey pledged their honourIf a noble swore such an oath that was allhellip

that was the end of it that was enoughIf he swore to kill a manHe would kill him(Conrad 1990 63)

This is echoed in Frobeniusrsquo account of a series of heroic narratives entitled Pui to which wereturn at the end of this article In Pui the jeli asks the ruler lsquohow does one keep onersquos wordhalf or wholersquo and the ruler replied lsquoone keeps onersquos word whole completelyrsquo26 (Frobenius1921 110) The implications of this are considerable since according to Bassekou KouyateacutelsquoPoyirsquo was the tune to which a noble would swear to uphold his word (as discussed later)

The seizing of power from the Coulibaly lineage and the establishment of the Diarra rule by acaptive had major consequences for social structure ndash and music ndash in the middle Niger valleylsquoThis was the first time [in the feudal societies of the western Soudan] that those who were

Figure 9 Bassekou Kouyateacute plays the ngograveniba at the grave of Da Monzon Diarra ruler of Segu from 1808ndash1827Source Banankoroba Segou 2006

Colouronlin

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14 L Duraacuten

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595

600

605

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615

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625

630

noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

680

685

690

695

700

705

710

715

720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

735

740

745

750

755

760

765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

Colouronlin

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inprint

18 L Duraacuten

770

775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

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825

830

835

840

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855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

eBW

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

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20 L Duraacuten

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865

870

875

880

885

890

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900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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955

960

965

970

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980

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

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1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

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1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

1220

1225

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1235

1240

1245

1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

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1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

noble by blood were supplanted by the power of armshellip it became possible for an individual tobecome noble and for member of a caste or a slave to escape their status and become a respectedwarriorrsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10 my translation)

Tayiru Banbera reciteshellipthose times were different from todayIf you could catch somebody you could sell himIf somebody could catch you he would sell youThere was no such thing as prisonThey never tied people up and beat themIf you killed someone it was all rightBut if somebody killed you that was all rightThis is how the Bamana behavedThey could do what they wanted(Conrad 1990 194)

Thus through the epic traditions and songs of Segu we learn that it was a place where anyonecould become a captive at any time or conversely go from captive status to becoming a rulerMight such stories not have had resonance with slaves taken from the region infusing their mem-ories of music in Segu with powerful emotional and psychological associations

Bamana jeli music ndash characteristics and repertoire

According to Kubik the lsquowest central Sudanic belt is the style world that presents the closest sty-listic parallel from any part of Africa to what can be heard in the bluesrsquo (Kubik 1999 63ndash64 butBamana jeli music is not included in his discussion) What new evidence can this tradition throwon our understanding of the African sources of the blues And why has it been overlooked todate

The Bamana repertoire is inextricably connected with the region of Segou Unlike otherMande jeli pieces from Mali it has not migrated westwards into Senegambia (see Charry2000a 149) and therefore was omitted from the first public exposure to Mande music in the1970s27 In fact until the recent solo project of Bassekou Kouyateacute and his quartet of ngogravenis itwas little known outside Mali Bamana music has much more in common musically with theblues than the heptatonic styles of the Maninka and Mandinka which are the dominant soundsof the southwest of Mali upper Guinea southern Senegal and Gambia

lsquoBajurursquo (or bajourou using the French spelling) is one of the few heptatonic tunes in theBamana repertoire and virtually the only one that is also played by Maninka Mandinka andWolof griots28 where it is better known by the name lsquoTutu Jararsquo (or lsquoToutou Diarrarsquo) Accordingto oral traditions in Senegambia and western Mali lsquoTutu Jararsquo originated in Segu but it has eitherbeen Maninka-ized in its melodic features or else as some oral traditions suggest it originated inthe Mande heartland but was lsquocapturedrsquo by the Bamana29

Bamana jeli music30 belongs to the lsquostyle-clusterrsquo of the middle Niger valley sharing musicalcharacteristics with neighbouring peoples the Soninke Sonrai and Fulbe who also have the luteas their principal instrument and have lsquoco-existed for centuries of cultural interchange living inthe region as distinct but overlapping culturesrsquo (Kone 2000)

The instrument par excellence of the Bamana jeli is the ngograveniba the large lute (also known asbamanangograveni) with four strings as described in more detail later on

Kubik identifies two main strands of west Sudanic traditions that might have contributed tothe blues lsquoancient Negriticrsquo and Islamic (Kubik 1999 95) He outlines the following

Journal of African Cultural Studies 15

635

640

645

650

655

660

665

670

675

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

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720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

735

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750

755

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765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

18 L Duraacuten

770

775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

20 L Duraacuten

860

865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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955

960

965

970

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

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1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

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eBW

inprint

Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

1090

1095

1100

1105

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1120

1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

1180

1185

1190

1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

1220

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1250

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

1315

1320

1325

1330

1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

characteristics (amongst others) for rural blues from the Deep South such as a primarily solosinging tradition lsquowavy intonationrsquo lsquorather slow triple or swing temposrsquo a relationshipbetween the vocals and instrumental accompaniment of unison or heterophony pentatonicvocal melodies the use of string instruments and the absence of percussion (Kubik 1999)

Pentatonic scales are a significant feature of Bamana jeli music There are two main Bamanapentatonic scales corresponding roughly to CDEGA (major pentatonic) (for example as in thesong lsquoDa Monzonrsquo) and CDFGB flat sometimes described as minor pentatonic (because of itsflat seventh) (for example as in the song lsquoBakari Janrsquo or lsquoSaraforsquo) However these scales arenot tempered and intonation of particular pitches can vary in both vocal and instrumental per-formance especially the second degree of the scale which may be either flattened or sharpenedas to sound between a major and a minor third once again strongly reminiscent of the lsquobluesthirdrsquo The ambiguous third in a pentatonic scale is a feature of some other musical traditionsin Mali including that of huntersrsquo associations from the Wasulu region in the south of thecountry31 whose music also is felt to sound close to the blues No specific research has been con-ducted on the relationship between Wasulu hunters and Bamana jeli music though it is wellknown that huntersrsquomusic predates and contributes to that of Mande jeliw (see Charry 2000a 89)

The pentatonic scales of the Bamana repertoire are a significant factor in its limited circulationoutside of the middle Niger valley Musicians who belong to heptatonic (seven-note) musical cul-tures (Maninka Khassonke Mandinka Wolof) seem to find it difficult to perform the pentatonic(five-note) music ndash and vice versa This creates a fundamental musical divide between heptatonicand pentatonic-based music lsquowhich in effect means that the two live in different spheresrsquo (Charry2000a 18) and is relevant to the story of which of the two is the more likely source of the roots ofthe blues In my own experience Maninka musicians often complain that Bamana singers cannotlsquovoicersquoManinka music properlyWassoulou artists such as Oumou Sangareacute who are firmly in thelsquopentatonic camprsquo find it challenging to perform the heptatonic songs of the Maninka

Preliminary investigation of the Bamana jeli repertoire reveals that it is relatively small interms of musically distinctive songs and accompaniments (However most Bamana jeliw alsoinclude many pieces from the wider Mande repertoire such as Sunjata) Performances usuallyconsist of a free-rhythm introduction on the ngograveniba which then goes into the ostinato accompa-niment known as sen or riff The vocals may consist of spoken recitation (tariku) punctuated byimprovised singing (tegraveregravemegraveli) and choruses (dogravenkili) that are dedicated to specific characters orepisodes in the epic

While women may sing refrains or choruses (dogravenkili) recitation of the Bamana epics is invari-ably considered the work of male jeliw using the mode of heightened speech known as tariku (seeDuraacuten 2007b) This was the mode of recitation that Bassekou Kouyateacute used at the grave of DaMonzon as described above This mode of heightened speech is common among all the malegriots of the middle Niger valley including those of the Soninke and Fulbe ethnicities Thereare no recordings on the international market of Bamana jeliw performing long recitationsmostly they are only available on local cassettes (see Newton 1999) Spoken recitation overthe slow pentatonic accompaniment of the ngograveniba bears a strong resemblance to the genre ofblues known as lsquotalking bluesrsquo for example Robert Pete Williamrsquos Prisonerrsquos Talking Bluesrecorded in 1957 while he was in the notorious Angola Prison on a murder charge32 It isperhaps no coincidence that Robert Pete Williams was from Louisiana the region to whichmany Bamana slaves were taken in the nineteenth century

The Bamana repertoire consists mainly of a series of accompaniments and pre-composedsongs that relate to specific rulers and warriors of the Segu Empire in particular Bambugu NceDiarra son of Ngolo Diarra Da Monzon Diarra who ruled from 1808 to 1827 (as discussedabove) and Bakari Jan Koneacute a warrior by that name who was a contemporary of Da Monzon(see Conrad 1990)

16 L Duraacuten

680

685

690

695

700

705

710

715

720

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

735

740

745

750

755

760

765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

770

775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

Colouronlin

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20 L Duraacuten

860

865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

Colouronlin

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22 L Duraacuten

950

955

960

965

970

975

980

985

990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

1045

1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

eBW

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

1090

1095

1100

1105

1110

1115

1120

1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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1205

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1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

One of the difficulties of assessing the scope of the Bamana repertoire is that musicians maycollapse the time span of these characters and sing about all of them in one song moving from onetune and chorus to another without a break This is the case for example of one of the best-knownrecordings of Bamana music an LP dating from c 1977 by the Ensemble Instrumental Nationaldu Mali entitled Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambara played frequently on Malian radio33 It fea-tures a large ensemble with various Mande jeli instruments a male speaker a female chorus and asolo female singer Hawa Drameacute Part 1 (side A) begins with a slow version of the lsquoBambuguNcersquo song which like many Bamana fasaw (praise songs) is a lament Its chorus mourns thepassing of several rulers by saying that lsquotheir (alcohol) drinking days are overrsquo34 Then at 521 it goes into the tune for lsquoDa Monzonrsquo which remains the accompaniment until 1540when it changes into a faster minor tune known as lsquoSegu togravenjogravenrsquo Part 2 on side B continueswith the story of Bakari Jan After the first minute of Da Monzonrsquos tune (including the choruslsquoAsk Darsquo as described earlier on) the ensemble play Bakari Janrsquos tune35 (Figures 10 and 11)

Another praise song also for Bambugu Nce celebrates his building of a canal from the Nigerto his village Bambugu east of Segu (see Conrad 1990 133ndash141)36 It is one of the few Bamanatunes that is heptatonic rather than pentatonic Nevertheless in the popular imagination it hasretained its core Bamana values giving it a certain weightiness as a praise song for patrons

One of the most often recorded of the Bamana jeli tunes is dedicated to the warrior Bakari JanKoneacute A kind of superhero with extraordinary strength the song celebrates his victory againstBilisi a monstrous and powerful sorcerer who caused terror in Segu with his disdain forhuman life

When he [Bilisi] was on his way to the drinking house he would capture any child he hap-pened to meetHe would take him and give him to the brewmasters He would sell himThe next time he went out for a drinkWhoeverrsquos virgin daughter he met

Figure 10 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali on the roof of their regular rehearsal space the Carre-four des Jeunes Bamako 1986 Note the four ngograveni players from various ethnicitiesSource AQ72

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 17

725

730

735

740

745

750

755

760

765

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

770

775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

20 L Duraacuten

860

865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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955

960

965

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

1045

1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

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1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

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resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

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1395

He would capture and sell her(Tayiru Banbera in Conrad 1990 271)

Bakari Jan is remembered not only for his prowess as a warrior but also for his love of the ngogravenibandash hence the opening chorus in his song juru naani fograve jeliw be juru naani fograve (lsquothe four strings thejeliw are playing the four stringsrsquo) The ngograveni riff for this tune is in the minor pentatonic37

Two pieces that occur frequently in the Bamana repertoire are lsquoMbowdirsquo (variant spellingsMrsquoBaoudi Mbaoudi Nbaoudi Mrsquobaudi Bawdi Baudi) and lsquoNjaarorsquo (variant spellingsDjarou Jaru Nrsquodyarou Njaru) Both are almost certainly Fulbe in origin This is not surprisinggiven that the Fulbe lived side by side with the Bamana for centuries and finally destroyed theSegu Empire in 1861 Both terms Mbowdi and Njaaro appear to be FulbeFulani In Taylorrsquos(1995) Fulani-English dictionary bawde is translated as lsquopowers capabilitiesrsquo and bawdo asan lsquoable capable experienced personrsquo Njaru is defined as a lsquofeast festivitiesrsquo the kind of festiv-ity that was held the night before the battle to rally the warriors By contrast in Bailleulrsquos (1996)lsquoBambara-Frenchrsquo dictionary neither mbowdi nor njaaro are listed

lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo share musical features with lsquoPoyirsquo They are pentatonic in slowtempo and considered amongst the most lsquosacredrsquo and powerful in the Bamana repertoire Frobe-nius cites lsquothe Baudirsquo as an epic tradition of the Fulbe (Frobenius 1921 165ff) Amongst the Djel-gobe Fulbe in the northeast of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali the bawdi is a repertoire ofthe descendants of captives (riimaybe) who are AQ74lsquodispossessed of their cultural origins after having

Figure 11 Cover of LP featuring the recording of Dah Monzon ou lrsquoeacutepopeacutee Bambara c 1977Source AQ73

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18 L Duraacuten

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775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

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Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

Colouronlin

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20 L Duraacuten

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865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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965

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

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1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

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1070

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1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

1105

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1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

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1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

been captured during wars or raids or purchased from neighbouring powers by the Fulbe In arecording of their music made by the Museacutee de lrsquoHomme bawdi are defined as drums (singmbaggu) and bawdi laamu are drums of power lsquoa repertoire formerly performed in times ofwar to galvanize the warriors on their departurersquo (Loncke 1997) Once again we see the battle-field as the context for this music ndash played by captives

There are many recordings of lsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjaarorsquo played by the Fulbe Soninke Bamanaand even Sonrai musicians ndash thus they are veritable songs of the Niger valley38 Ali Farka Toureacuterecorded lsquoMbowdirsquo on guitar together with an ngoacuteni player Ousmane Gadjaka39

Sleeve notes to a field recording of lsquoNjarursquo by Fulbe griots in Mopti Mali defines lsquoNjarursquo aslsquostimulation of the world of the Fulanirsquo The music is a rapid-fire spoken panegyric accompaniedon the Fulbe four-string lute the hoddu (Brandes and Maleacute 2008) The Soninke gambare playerDemba Fadiga has recorded a track called lsquoNbaoudirsquo with spoken recitation in Soninke inter-spersed with vocals by a female singer in Bamanankan praising a Fulani patron40 Even iflsquoMbowdirsquo and lsquoNjarorsquo are Fulbe in origin they have been thoroughly absorbed into theBamana tradition

Bamana jeli music in the public sphere

Why is Bamana music not better known outside the region either in scholarship or throughrecordings One reason is that the epic tradition of Bamana Segu has never had the kind ofwide exposure as that of the story of Sunjata Keita There is no ritual space or time for its recita-tion such as the re-roofing of Sunjatarsquos sacred hut in Kangaba every seven years (Jansen 1997 AQ12Ganay 1995) Conrad found while first working in 1976 with Tayiru Banbera (who was generallyacknowledged as one of the most lsquoknowledgeable and skilled raconteurs of Malirsquo) that even thiscelebrated jeli was performing on an infrequent basis (Conrad 1990 4ndash5) The American scholarRobert Newton as part of his investigation into the Bamana epics attended an event in 1994 inhonour of the great Bamana warrior Bakari Jan Kone at Djoforongo but was somewhat dismayedto find that the only music played was an old recording of the lsquoBakari Janrsquo song by Malirsquos Ensem-ble Instrumental National du Mali (Newton 1999)

As already stated Malirsquos first government under President Modibo Keita favoured theBamana style over others During the height of Malirsquos dance band era the Orchestre Reacutegionalde Seacutegou later renamed Super Biton de Seacutegou were the pioneering modernizers of theBamana style and repertoire They were the first orchestra to perform an arrangement of partof the Bamana epic at the first Biennale of Arts and Culture for the Young in 1970 (Mazzoleni2011 81) The song titled lsquoDa Monzonrsquo is 1214 minutes long ndash much longer than most record-ings by local dance bands of the time It includes the traditional accompaniment and chorus Danyininka (lsquoask Darsquo) and a spoken recitation of excerpts of the story over a full horn sectionand electric guitars At c 845 minutes into the recording the tune changes to Segu tabali tegrave(Figures 12 and 13)

The balance between the slow pentatonic Bamana style versus those of the heptatonic andfaster Maninka songs began however to tip in favour of the latter under the rule of MoussaTraoreacute Malirsquos second president (1968ndash1991) One reason for this was the popularity of neigh-bouring Guinearsquos dance bands who drew primarily on the heptatonic Maninka styles of upperGuinea with arrangements and instrumentation borrowed from Cuban as well as Congolesemusic with which they had many musical features in common41 Cuban and Congolese musichowever did not mesh as well with the more harmonically static and slow pentatonic Bamanarepertoire

As is well known recordings of Cuban music circulated widely in West Africa after WorldWar II By contrast there is little evidence of direct exposure to the blues in Guinea and Mali

Journal of African Cultural Studies 19

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

20 L Duraacuten

860

865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

22 L Duraacuten

950

955

960

965

970

975

980

985

990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

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1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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1205

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

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1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

during this period It is more likely that knowledge of the blues was received via rock rsquonrsquo roll andjazz recordings Louis Armstrong visited Mali in 1967 making an enormous impression on thedirector of the Orchestre Reacutegional de Seacutegou trumpeter Amadou Ba (Mazzoleni 2011 79) but

Figure 12 Cover of an LP issued in Mali in 1970 as part of the Anthology of Malian Music series (Bare-nreiter Musicaphon BM 30 L 2601) featuring the band that later renamed itself Super Biton de SegouSource AQ75

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 13 Cinquantenaire (50th anniversary of independence) photo of Banzoumana Sissoko lsquoLe vieuxlionrsquo recording lsquoMalirsquo Bamako 2010Source AQ66AQ80

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

20 L Duraacuten

860

865

870

875

880

885

890

895

900

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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955

960

965

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

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1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

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1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

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Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

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1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1135

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1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

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1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1320

1325

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1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

there is no evidence that any blues musicians visited the country The word lsquobluesrsquo is rarely refer-enced in the music of either Guinea or Mali until the 1990s42

With the decline in popularity of Malirsquos dance bands from the 1980s onward and the end ofthe Biennale festivals Bamana music had a much lower profile than some other regionaltraditions Only a few artists such as the singer Abdoulaye Diabateacute former lead vocalistwith Keacuteneacute Star continued to champion the pentatonic Bamana style singing in theSegu dialect of Bamanan In the absence of Bamana music on the scene in Bamako someforeign scholars even concluded that all jeliya the music of the Mande jeliw is essentiallyheptatonic43

The 1990s saw the meteoric rise in Bamako of the popularity of the jelimuso (female jeli) anda style of music that developed around the wedding party circuit in Bamako a style which con-tinues to dominate in the twenty-first century The Bamana ngograveni has no place in the ensemblesthat accompany these singers Instead it is the smaller and higher-pitched Maninka griot lutes(nkograveni kograveni) that feature alongside electric guitars ndash not the lower-pitched Bamana ngogravenibawhose sound is considered too lsquomasculinersquo (Figure 14)

Even the choice of skin for the sound table of the ngograveniba is conceptually lsquomasculinersquo

Until very recently we only used the skin from the head of a cow for the ngograveni because the ngograveni islike the head of the family who is always a man So only men can play it It was not intended forwomenrsquos earshellipWe would talk about wars and battles slaves and warriors this was male conversa-tion (cegrave baro)The music of the Bamana ngograveni has power Because there are many Bamana powerful kings remem-bered by the ngograveni Because the Bamana kings had the power of the boliw [shrines] Now we live inthe era of human rights and electricity So the ngograveni is changing Now we donrsquot sing about wars wesing about the problems of life today ndash health money marriage children schools politics And thecow skin can come from any part of the cow wersquore in such a hurry to make new instruments and sellthem (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007)

Bamana jeli music is considered by its practitioners to be cegravefoli ndashmusic by men for men44 In thatrespect it runs counter to the musical trends in Mali described by some authors as the lsquofeminiza-tionrsquo of Malian music whereby women singers are the main stars and where radio television andwedding parties with music are their main platforms (Diawara 1996 Duraacuten 2000 Schulz 2001)The Bamana sound is often described by Malians as lsquoheavyrsquo lsquosombrersquo lsquopowerfulrsquo and lsquomascu-linersquo all of which would sit equally well with the blues

Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos acoustic band Ngoniba created in 2006 has renewed awareness ofBamana jeli music among local audiences in Mali and also taken it to international audiencesfor the first time Ngoniba is a quartet of different-sized ngogravenis including the ngograveniba and alarger bass ngograveni invented especially for the group ndash which includes percussion and the voiceof Bassekoursquos wife the singer Amy Sacko Bassekoursquos idea of making an acoustic ensembleout of the same instruments has been influential among young musicians in Bamako and thengograveni is currently enjoying something of a revival45 (Figure 15)

The Bamana ngograveniba

Boat-shaped or round plucked lutes with skin sound tables and pole-like fretless necks are foundwith a variety of names across savannah West Africa The playing techniques and styles of theBamana ngograveni reflect the porous boundaries between historically connected traditions of neigh-bouring ethnicities to the Bamana such as the Fulbe and Soninke professional hereditary musi-cians (griots) of the region have always made it their business to learn and appropriate eachotherrsquos repertoires

Charryrsquos comprehensive review of these lutes classifies them into two main morphologicaltypes differentiated by the shape of their bridges by their geographical distribution and by

Journal of African Cultural Studies 21

905

910

915

920

925

930

935

940

945

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

950

955

960

965

970

975

980

985

990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

1040

1045

1050

1055

1060

1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

1090

1095

1100

1105

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1120

1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

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1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

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1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

1220

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1230

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1240

1245

1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

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1275

1280

1285

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1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

which kind of musician griot or non-griot plays them Which of the two ndash griot or non-griot ndashand from which particular culture the ancestor of the banjo comes is not known (Kubik 1999 16)One issue here is the claim that griots were never enslaved46 because they possessed valuableinformation for the survival and honour of lineages Stories are common amongst jeliw of ances-tors who were threatened with death but always managed to talk their way out of it Jeliw them-selves were slave owners If their patron was killed or overthrown they would change allegianceto the new rulers rather than be enslaved Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo famously said inthe early years of post-independence lsquoin the rivalries between African parties I refused to take afirm stand on one side or the other I like the winner therefore I like nobody before the end of thebattlersquo (quoted in Keita 1995 187)

Even if griots themselves were never enslaved there is plenty of evidence to suggest thattimbres and musical instruments from West African griot traditions were recreated by slave com-munities across the Atlantic The banjo provides one example of this Although we do not knowwhich of the manyWest African lutes the banjo is descended from the first account of the banjo inthe New World dates as far back as 1678 (Conway 1995 AQ13 56) and it was a favourite instrument ofslaves described in one account as lsquotheir beloved banjarrsquo (Conway 1995 AQ14 58) There are manyreferences to black banjo players in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century (Conway 1995 AQ1559) which as we have seen above coincides with the period of intense slave trade from theSegu Empire and to which many Bamana slaves were taken The music of the slavebanjo was certainly one element that contributed to the birth of the rural blues (Kubik 1999Conway 1995 AQ16)

Figure 14 Ba Issa Koneacute (left) playing the small Maninka ngograveni and Modibo Djan Diabate on electric guitarat a wedding party in Bamako 2005Source AQ76

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22 L Duraacuten

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955

960

965

970

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980

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990

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

1000

1005

1010

1015

1020

1025

1030

1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

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1070

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1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

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1100

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where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

1220

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1230

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1240

1245

1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

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1290

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1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

The fretless neck of the West African griot lutes makes it possible to vary pitches as opposedto the fixed pitches of the kora and the huntersrsquo harp (other contenders for the origin of the blues)Bending sliding lsquowavyrsquo intonation and ambiguous thirds fifths and sevenths are intrinsic to thengograveniba and cannot be attributed to contact with the blues They can be heard clearly on olderrecordings from the 1950s and 1960s featuring major Bamana artists of the time who weremost unlikely to have ever heard any recordings of the blues and who were known to be fiercelytraditional in outlook

The Bamana ngograveni falls into the category of wooden-trough lute with a fan-shaped bridgewhich Charry calls lsquogriot lutesrsquo ndash lsquoprobably the oldest melody instrument used by griotsdating back perhaps many centuries before it was first mentioned by Al-Umari and Ibn Battutain the fourteenth centuryrsquo (Charry 1996 9) The Bamana ngograveniba has four strings of whichonly two are stopped against the neck while a third string the shortest (nearest to the head ofthe player) is plucked by the thumb as a kind of drone plus a fourth string that is pluckedopen as melody This non-sequential arrangement of pitches (sometimes termed a lsquore-entranttuningrsquo) is also found on the banjo

There are two main Bamana ngograveniba tunings called jegrave (meaning white) and eredineacute Thelatter name is confusing as it is phonetically close to both ardin and lsquoordinairersquo terms thatare widely used for tunings on a variety of local lutes (see Charry 2000 AQ17

para 162ndash163 for lists of

lute tunings with names and staff notation) lsquoOrdinairersquo is probably a French-languagecorruption of ardin which is the name of the Moorish harp played by female Moorishgriots (tigiwit iggawen) Charry cites Coolenrsquos etymology for ardin as the Fulbe wordardo lsquoldquoto leadrdquo or in another context a certain kind of Fulbe warrior leaderrsquo (Charry2000 AQ18

para 164) Once again we find the connection between warriors and the lute There is

also a kora tuning known as hardino lsquomost probably borrowed from the konirsquo (Charry2000 AQ19

para 164)

Figure 15 Ngoniba in the Bogolan studios Bamako while recording their 2009 album I speak fula Basse-kou Kouyateacute is second from right and his wife the singer Amy Sacko is second from leftSource AQ77

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 23

995

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1005

1010

1015

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1035

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

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1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

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where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

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Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

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1200

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1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

1220

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1250

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1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

1315

1320

1325

1330

1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

The ngograveniba tuning called eredineacute is exactly the same as that cited by Charry as Tutu JaraArdin (Charry 2000 AQ20 163) (minus the fifth or highest pitch string furthest away from the headof the player) lsquoTutu Jararsquo is one of the best known pieces of the Bamana jeli repertoire andits use as a name for a Wolof xalam tuning combined with ardin reinforces the view that theBamana ngograveni and its more northern variants the Soninke gambare and the Moorish tidinithave been important sources for styles and repertoires throughout the region As Charry sayslsquothe relationship between these three uses of ardin ndash Moorish harp a koni (and xalam) tuningand a Mandinka kora tuning ndash is not clear but it does indicate some process of diffusion atwork among griots of neighbouring ethnic groupsrsquo (Charry 2000 AQ21 164)

The other tuning jegrave (white) is according to various ngograveniba players the original tuning foraccompanying singers Bassekou Kouyateacute claims that his father Moustapha Kouyateacute (died c1984) only ever used this tuning It is the same as the xalam tuning called Tutu Jara ordinaireminus the fifth and highest string cited in Charry (Charry 2000 AQ22 163) The use of Tutu Jara inthe name of a xalam tuning shows the influence from the Mande tradition

The principal way of sounding the ngograveniba strings is with a downwards movement using onlythe thumb index and middle fingers The downwards strike allows the player to flick back with arhythmic tap against the sound table47 This added percussive element has been borrowed by koraplayers who occasionally tap the wooden handle of the instrument with the knuckle of their firstfinger

lsquoFrailingrsquo lsquoclaw-hammeringrsquo (to use banjo terminology) and damping of the strings are oldplaying techniques used on all griot lutes of the middle Niger as are bending hammering andsliding notes on the neck In the mid 1980s Bassekou Kouyateacute introduced a new way of pluckingthe strings with an upwards stroke using for the first time all three fingers making it easier toproduce fast solos to mirror those of the guitar but also thereby changing the acoustic makingit sound more like a kora (Bassekou Kouyateacute personal communication 2007) For this reasonaudiences often confuse the sound of the ngograveni with that of the kora

According to Charry the Bamana ngograveniba is the largest of the griot lutes Its wooden resona-tor has a slight concave or waist as opposed to the canoe-shaped resonators of the smaller lutes inthe Senegambia region and upper Guinea (Figure 16)

This larger type of lute is not exclusive to the Bamana but is also played by griots of the Fulbe(who call it hoddu) and the Soninke (who call it gambare) It was almost certainly the instrumentthat was transported by slaves to Morocco and transformed into the gimbri the lute of the GnawaSufi brotherhoods whose oral traditions specifically trace their ancestry to the lsquoBambararsquo Charrysuggests that the name gimbri is derived from the Soninke gambare (Charry 1996 14) reflectingthe important role of the Soninke as a point of diffusion of musical styles instruments and linguis-tic terms in the region (Figure 17)

In the search for the origins of this instrument type Charry refutes Farmerrsquos theory that itcame from ancient Egypt and calls for further investigation into movements of lsquoSoninke andother Mande peoples north into MoroccohellipAny link with ancient Egypt would most likelyhave reached the North African Gnawa gimbri via the south from where it originated Thatlink would most likely have been the Soninke gambarersquo (Charry 1996 12ndash13) A full explorationof the musical connections with Soninke culture is beyond the scope of this article however theregional importance of the Soninke gambare as the ancestral lute takes on extra significance in ourdiscussion of the song lsquoPoyirsquo

The ngograveniba was the only melody instrument that Segu jeliw played during the time of theSegu Empire There is no evidence that either the kora or the Maninka balafon ever madetheir way to the courts of the middle Niger valley So emblematic of the Bamana tradition isthe lute that bamanangograveni is used as a generic term to describe Bamana music (Brandes andMaleacute 1998)

24 L Duraacuten

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1050

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1065

1070

1075

1080

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

1090

1095

1100

1105

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1120

1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

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1190

1195

1200

1205

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1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

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1240

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1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

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1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1315

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1325

1330

1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

Evidence for the existence of the ngograveni as the favoured instrument of Segu Bamanarsquos rulerscomes from oral tradition as in the following extract from an epic recitation by Kabineacute Sissoko

Da Monzon reigned in Seguthe city of balanzans [acacias]

Figure 16 Bassekou Kouyateacute at the Niger near his village Garana holding the Bamana ngograveniba Note theslight waist on the resonator the bridge attached to the end of the neck and four stringsSource Thomas Dorn 2007 by permission

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Figure 17 The gimbri played by a member of the Gnawa brotherhood in Essaouira Morocco 2009Source AQ78

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 25

1085

1090

1095

1100

1105

1110

1115

1120

1125

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1135

1140

1145

1150

1155

1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

1180

1185

1190

1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

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1240

1245

1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

1315

1320

1325

1330

1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

where the tonjons [slave army] had builta palace with seven vestibulesThirty-five guitars [ngogravenis] flattered the ears of the king(Kesteloot 1993 34)48

This may be hyperbole it is usual for jeliw to boast of their importance in pre-colonial timesHowever a twentieth-century descendant of the Diarra dynasty Gaoussou Diarra attested thathis ancestor Monzon Diarra (who ruled Segu from 1787 to 1808) had in his entourage 740jeliw who were lsquofearless warriors a law unto themselveshellip They took the best horses chosethe best women and wore a silver bracelet on their left arm and a gold earring on their rightearrsquo (Sauvageot quoted in Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 10ndash11 fn My translation) Tayiru Ban-berarsquos epic recitation places the jeli Tinyetigiba Danteacute at the centre of the intrigues that unfold atthe court of Segu during the rule of Da Monzon Diarra It is Danteacute who advises Da Monzon at alltimes on all matters of both war and love

Despite the descriptions of large ensembles of lutes at the court of Segu the only timesuch an orchestra has existed in living memory is when Bassekou Kouyateacute brought 50ngograveni players to perform at the presidential palace in September 2010 as part of the 50th anni-versary of independence celebrations Otherwise the Bamana ngograveniba is usually played on itsown or with one other ngograveni accompanying recitation49 (see for example Frobenius 1921108ndash110 Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 and also recordings of Fotigui Diabateacute in Brandesand Maleacute 1998)

lsquoFalling a little differentlyrsquo50 ndash lsquoPoyirsquo and the blues

We now return to the piece called lsquoPoyirsquo with which this investigation began and its possiblelinks with the blues As we have seen in the description by the Kouyateacute brothers in GaranalsquoPoyirsquo is a tune played to accompany recitations of praise for bravery ndash as are many otherpieces in the Mande jeli repertoire But there is a special ethos to lsquoPoyirsquo

Poyi is a sacred [ritual] piece It recalls three things new life fresh blood fresh excrement Itrsquos a tunethat you make an oath on If you swear on Poyi that you will do something yoursquore obliged to fulfilyour promise or otherwise yoursquod better hide behind your mother Itrsquos like Janjun but more powerfulJanjun is for the griots but Poyi is for the true nobility If a noble swears on Poyi and doesnrsquot keep hisword hersquoll be at the bottom of the ladder of his entire race Itrsquos like that (Bassekou Kouyateacute personalcommunication London 2013)51

How can such oral testimony be corroborated The picture is complicated by the paucity ofrecordings with the title lsquoPoyirsquo (or similar spellings) A bit of detective work is therefore requiredBy piecing together evidence from ethnolinguistics a few local recordings transcriptions of epicrecitations and references in obscure literary texts a convincing case emerges for this tune asbeing different from all other Bamana tunes In essence it is an instrumental accompanimentover which oaths would be sworn or war captives would take their decision to live as slavesor die as warriors

One of the few named recordings of the piece called lsquoPoirsquo is found on a cassette featuringBanzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo who (as already stated) was one of the most influential andrespected musicians of the post-independence era The exact provenance or date of this recordingis not known but it most probably was recorded for Radio Mali in the 1960s Interestingly theother two pieces on the cassette are both major lsquoritualrsquo pieces in the Mande jeli repertoirelsquoSunjatarsquo and lsquoJanjonrsquo On the recording Banzoumana accompanies himself on the ngogravenibathe traditional iron rattle placed on the end of the neck can be heard clearly The piece beginswith a sung recitation but quickly turns into an instrumental performance ndash probably the only

26 L Duraacuten

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1160

1165

1170

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

1180

1185

1190

1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

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1225

1230

1235

1240

1245

1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

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1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

instrumental that the Old Lion ever recorded Bassekou states that there are three or fourregional variants of lsquoPoyirsquo all of which are lsquominorrsquo pentatonic and in slow 68 and thatBanzoumana ndash Bassekoursquos grandfather ndash had his own individual way of playing it52 Anotherinstrumental recording cited as lsquoPoyi le blues du griotrsquo is played by the musician AmadouDiarra on the ngograveniba53 There are surely many others for which further research is required(Figure 18)

The polysemous vocable poyi (with its variant spellings poui pui puyi poi) may carry asmuch weight as the music itself Poyi is listed in the main Bamana-French dictionary as alsquopoem or epic ndash griot vocabularyrsquo and also as a verb lsquoto appear suddenlyrsquo (Bailleul 1996) Itsuse is widespread in the countryside of southern and central Mali where it denotes strengthand exceptional bravery Some informants have told me that it is onomatopoeic conveying thenoise of an arrow or sword slicing the air or a scythe cutting through grasses In the Wasuluregion which has produced some of Malirsquos most popular music over the past two decadesPoyi is a term for praising a strong farmer or hunter lsquoPoyirsquo or lsquoPoyi sensenrsquo is the name of thefirst song that one learns to play on the kamalengograveni The wassoulou musician Kokanko Sataexplains that lsquoPoyi sensen was the first song I learnt ndash it means a strong worker a braveyoung man ndash Poyi sensen means to walk slowly in front steadily without fearrsquo (personal com-munication with the author 2005)In her study of wassoulou music Heather Maxwell considers that

Figure 18 A local cassette copy of a Radio Mali recording by Banzoumana Sissoko [using the spellingBazoumana]Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml (Accessed 10 August 2012)

Colouronlin

eBW

inprint

Journal of African Cultural Studies 27

1175

1180

1185

1190

1195

1200

1205

1210

1215

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

1220

1225

1230

1235

1240

1245

1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

1315

1320

1325

1330

1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

Poyi is a borrowed word from the specialized jeli vocabulary but its meaning is polyvalent Poyi alsomeaning foli in Bamanankan means a poem an epic to greet salute thanks and speak It is a heavilyweighted wordhellip (Maxwell 2002 181ndash182)

lsquoPoyirsquo was also the name of a song from the upper Niger in Guinea accompanied on the dan (anow almost extinct calabash-resonated pluriarc that was one of the precursors of the Wasulu youthharp) Meaning lsquogoingrsquo lsquoPoyirsquo was lsquodedicated to war veterans and young men who achievedsomething special for the public goodrsquo (Camara 2002 63)

Coumba Sidibeacute one of the pioneers of wassoulou54 recorded a popular track entitled Poui-kanpoui It opens with a man exclaiming lsquoPoyi Pouikanpouirsquo the sound of which is echoed withringing harmonics on the kamalengoni (youth harp) In fact it is not uncommon to hear exclama-tions of lsquopoyirsquo at the beginnings of Bamana songs articulated in a plosive manner as if conjuringthe sound of a bullet whistling through the air (The late Lobi Traoreacute Bamana guitarist and singerfrom Segou whose music has been called the lsquoBambara bluesrsquo55 often opened his performancesat nightclubs in Bamako by shouting lsquopoyirsquo) I have also heard that the term poyi was shoutedduring wrestling matches in Mali during the first decades of independence to encourage cham-pion wrestlers

Such exclamations are also found in the line-by-line transcription of a little-known episodefrom the Bamana Segu epic concerning the siege of Jonkoloni (French spelling Dionkoloni) awell-guarded fortress town some 200 km northwest of Segou during the reign of Da Monzon(1808ndash1827) The story goes that Da Monzon wished to annex the town to his empire butaccording to the jeliw Jonkoloni had recourse to great mystic power capable of rebuffing allthe attempts of Da Monzon Diarrarsquos dreaded togravenjograven army The story revolves around a hero bythe name of Silamakan and there are many overlaps with a Fulbe epic Silamaka et Poullori(see Belcher 1999)

Kabineacute Sissoko a Bamana jeli originally from Segou performed a recitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquoin Bamako in 1968 for the French scholars Kesteloot and Dumestre accompanying himself onthe ngograveniba Sissoko had been the apprentice of Banzoumana Sissoko the lsquoOld Lionrsquo for sixyears (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 22) and he may well have learnt the tune from hismaster who was the first to record lsquoJonkolonirsquo56

In Kesteloot and Dumestrersquos bilingual (Bamana-French) transcription of Kabineacute Sissokorsquosperformance the term lsquoPoyirsquo occurs from time to time at beginnings and endings of sectionsndash a kind of sonic and metaphorical representation of power

Da [Monzon] declared that he would never give up the fight to Jonkoloni Jonkoloni said she [thetown] would never fear Da Monzon Poyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 51)

Mariheri of Jonkoloni claims that he can drink the poyi juicehellip ( Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 43)Poyi iron slurry cold water that puts out the fire the big drum that blocks the path the madmanwho settles in the ruin the stranger with a dirty head at the end of the field (Kesteloot and Dumestre1975 113)

Jonkoloni is a waspsrsquo nest a scorpionsrsquo nest itrsquos a city of valiant knights this is the truth And nowpoyi (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 115)(translations mine)

There is however one view that Poyi was a Bamana genre of recent origin connected to the riseof radio broadcasting in Mali The Malian anthropologist and politician Pascale Baba Couloubalystated

the lsquopoirsquo tends towards fantasy and boisterousness as can be seen in the performances of Jeli BabaSisoko and in those of the lsquopoikanpoirsquo group Jeli Baba Sissoko is a well-known griot and radioannouncer whose Tuesday evening broadcasts have attracted a substantial audience both in Maliand in the Malian diaspora The Tuesday evening lsquopoirsquo is a new style of narrative that has borrowed

28 L Duraacuten

1220

1225

1230

1235

1240

1245

1250

1255

1260

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

1315

1320

1325

1330

1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

from all the traditional genres while establishing a renewed focus on eroticism luxury wealth andthe miraculous In doing so Jeli Baba loosely translates tales from the thousand and one nights intothe Bamana language and adopts the technique of Segou thus redrawing according to his ownimagination the countenance of a brave and warlike feudal Bamana society that has been morallyundermined by women and money (Couloubaly 1993 59)

Couloubalyrsquos description may focus on a new interpretation of lsquoPoyirsquo but it undoubtedly has res-onances with the meanings that have already been explored in this article It also mirrors animportant but overlooked literary source on middle Niger epics ndash a little-known publication inGerman by Leo Frobenius who travelled around Africa in the early twentieth century collectingoral traditions

Volume six of Frobeniusrsquo (1921) 12-volume publication describes a series of heroic songsentitled lsquoPuirsquo (clearly a variant of poyi) collected amongst a Soninke community in BeninBelcher a scholar of African oral literature questions whether these texts are genuinely ofSoninke origin lsquofor in fact the discernable language is more often than not Bamana and the cul-tural horizon involved belongs not to single group but to a sort of generic heroic world that inmodern and reliable transcriptions is best represented among the Fularsquo (Belcher 1999 87)Conrad too believed that

many of Frobeniusrsquo conclusions are highly questionablehellip and the possibility of the existence of thedausi and of the related genre of shorter material called pui as perceived by him should be studiedfurther before being accepted as having been part of West African tradition (Conrad and Fisher1983 fn 156)

Nevertheless Frobeniusrsquo description seems to confirm the evidence presented here on Poyi andsuggests that Poyi was once a much more widespread performance genre than it is now It is unli-kely that knowledge of this rather obscure and old text in German never republished and onlyavailable as a rare book in some libraries would have fed back into the tradition

Frobenius defines Pui as a collection of songs recounting the stories of 12 heroes of the regionknown as Kala in the northeast of Segou province he states that every griot (he uses the termdialli [ jeli] though mostly he does not cite indigenous names) knows at least one of thesesongs though not all of them nor are they performed as a unity or continuous story unlikeanother genre that he cites the Dausi Frobenius explains that it was difficult to compile a com-plete document of the Pui partly because lsquotitles differrsquo Thus Puiwas a genre not a specific piece(Frobenius 1921 93) He also provides detailed and accurate line drawings (Frobenius 1921 41)of what he describes as the lsquobardrsquos lute from Segursquo which elsewhere he calls lsquodjuma konirsquo (Fro-benius 1921 44) but in the stories just calls lsquoguitarrsquo

The Pui stories Frobenius relates are infused with the kinds of Bamana values mentionedearlier in this article They extol the virtues of bravery and honour of keeping onersquos word Themetaphorical language is so idiomatic to that of the jeliw that it is difficult to imagine that Fro-benius could have made it up and it contains some interesting references to the Pui itself

At least one of the stories concerns a lsquoherorsquo from Kala Sirrani Korro Samba and a jeliSignana Samba One day while Sirranirsquos wife is travelling she is surrounded by 60 lsquoheroesrsquofrom Segu on the lookout for booty57

She said lsquoWhat kinds of robbers and vagabonds are you that even a respectable woman draws yourattention Arenrsquot you ashamed to be standing around in the sun with your thievish thoughts so that Ican see each onersquo Amazed one of the sixty heroes said lsquoWoman what gives you the courage tospeak thus to the sixty foremost heroes of Segursquo Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife said lsquoOh what greatheroes you are daring to talk so boldly to a woman Just wait till my husband comes hersquoll teachyou to fart from fearhellip and there will soon be an end to your splendid courage in front of awomanrsquo Signana Samba the jeli struck on his guitar and said lsquoif the courage of the husband ofthis woman does not belong in the Pui then at least one should sing about the quick-witted responsesof this woman Woman who is your husbandrsquo

Journal of African Cultural Studies 29

1265

1270

1275

1280

1285

1290

1295

1300

1305

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

1315

1320

1325

1330

1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

Sirrani Korro Sambarsquos wife answered lsquoWho my husband is Do you really want to know Then youshould hurry to look for mouse holes in the fields and birdsrsquo nests in the trees and hide there with yourponies Itrsquos from there that you can best get to know my husband but take care not to be trampledunderfoot by his horsersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoWoman you absolutely must accompany us toSegu so that the king can learn something out of the ordinary Has anyone ever heard such a birdsing Onwards to Segursquo

The wife warns the 60 heroes that her husband Sirrani is drunk and therefore especially danger-ous When Sirrani turns up he takes three of the heroes prisoner and the jeli taps on his lute andsings

lsquoYou heroes of Segu consider that you are sixty men who have been poisoned by a womanrsquos mouthand must now be slaughtered as sick people Just think that you are heroes you sixty men from Segursquo

Then the jeli rode up to the woman and said lsquoIf this matter is ever to be sung in the Pui as it deserves tobe then we must get a jeli to do so for these men running away are certainly not going to tell the storyBut if the jeli reports this matter in the Pui at that point he will be far away from the brave woman hehas got to know that he wishes to sing about too far for her to be able to make him a giftrsquo Thereuponthe wife of Sirrani Korro Samba took off one of her heavy gold earrings and gave it to the jeli

The story continues with the jeli creating on the spot a song that he calls lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo with whichhe taunts the heroes of Segu by insinuating that the 60 of them had been defeated by the one herofrom Kala The jeli refers to lsquothe Puirsquo several times as if it were a medium through which bravedeeds would be recounted almost like a column in a newspaper For instance when the 60 heroeshave returned to Segu ndash or rather those who have survived and not been taken captives by Sirranindash the ruler demands that the jeli explain the meaning of lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo

The heroes all gathered in the evening The jeli had hung his sixty-one gold rings on his guitar Theking asked lsquoWhat is in Puirsquo Samba said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquo They all looked at him Signana Samba askedMassassi Diadierri lsquoHow does one keep onersquos word half or wholersquo Massassi Diadierri said lsquoOnekeeps onersquos word wholersquo and the jeli said lsquoOne-sixtyrsquohellip(Frobenius 1921 106ndash110)

Frobeniusrsquo descriptions of the Pui are consistent with lsquoPoyirsquo as performed and later described tome by Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family in Garana on that day in 2006 They are also consistentwith the Poyi songs in the Wasulu region and the exclamations of Poyi during Kabineacute Sissokorsquosrecitation of lsquoDionkolonirsquo and by Bamana musicians in general The difficulty of finding manynamed recordings of lsquoPoyirsquo could well reflect the fact that it is more of a generic concept than aspecific tune connected with a vanished cult of bravery on the battlefield and as such is fadingfrom memory amongst the younger generation of singers It is also sometimes performed with thetitle of lsquoMbawdirsquo a tune with which it shares various musical features

In a sense the most important thing about lsquoPoyirsquo is not so much what it might have soundedlike during the era of Bamana Segu or whether indeed as several musicians have expressed itcan be seen as lsquothe original Bamana bluesrsquo If via the memories of captives lsquoPoyirsquo and otherBamana tunes ever did reach the New World they would in any case have most certainly beenrecreated in a lsquothoroughly Atlantic wayrsquo

Perhaps more to the point is that lsquoPoyirsquo is a window on the role of Bamana jelimusic as part ofthe little researched and complex musical traditions of Malirsquos middle Niger valley and theirrelationship with the blues

Conclusion

Mali is frequently cited as one of the sources of the blues yet the discussion is not nuanced sincethere is almost no research available on the music of the middle Niger valley and until veryrecently not many recordings either Bamana jeli music is one of these traditions Its musical

30 L Duraacuten

1310

1315

1320

1325

1330

1335

1340

1345

1350

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

resonances with the blues and with the banjo have had recent exposure on the international stagethrough the work of the ngograveni player Bassekou Kouyateacute This article has attempted to documentthe historical reasons for these similarities taking the little-known piece lsquoPoyirsquo as its startingpoint suggesting that the context in which it was played before and after battles to warriorsand war captives and its ritual or lsquosacredrsquo ethos provide an important missing piece in thequest for the roots of the blues

The article provides the first detailed account of Bamana jeli music with its emblematicinstrument the ngograveniba its origins in the Bamana Segu Empire its slow bluesy tempo pentatonicscales male ethos and lyrics that glorify fighting and bloodshed

Although Bamana music is one of several middle Niger valley musical cultures that sharetraits with the rural blues of the Deep South it may have been the principal conduit for the trans-atlantic flows of these traits in view of Segursquos culture of warfare during the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries which generated thousands of slaves They may have had a broader culturalimpact than their small numbers would imply perhaps even recreating the sonic memory ofthe last piece of music they might have heard before being sent westwards

In the words of Kabineacute Sissoko lsquoand now Poyirsquo

Notes

1 Throughout this article I use two spellings for the region of Segou and its capital town Segou is theFrench spelling that is widely used on maps and in literature as French is Malirsquos official languagewhile Segu is the official DNAFLA spelling (Direction Nationale de lrsquoAlphabetisation Fonctionnelleet de la Linguistique Appliqueacutee) I use these different spellings to distinguish between references topre-colonial Segu (cf Conrad 1990) versus present-day Segou (the town and region)

2 In keeping with most English-language Mande scholarship I have chosen to use the term Bamana ratherthan lsquoBambararsquo the former being an endonym (that is the term from the Bamana language itself) whilethe latter is mainly used in French-language literature and conversation (and also by some other ethni-cities to refer to the Bamana) See Vydrine (1999 71) for detailed discussion of the term Bamana Ingeneral I have used DNAFLA spelling for Bamana terms and song titles except for surnames whichare written with French orthography

3 At this stage in 2006 Bassekou had yet to record his first solo album Segu blue (one of the first inter-national recordings showcasing the Bamana ngograveni)

4 The story of Dograve Kamissa the buffalo woman is one of the best-known episodes of the Sunjata epic andthere are dozens of versions of it See Conrad (2004 30ndash51) for a line-by-line transcription of oneversion

5 For a full account of this empire as told by a Bamana jeli see Conrad (1990)6 More discussion of this is found later on in the article The main study to date of Mande music (Charry

2000a) for example does not include Bamana jeli music7 The blues scholar Paul Oliver points to the lsquoldquoblue notesrdquo created by slide and sideways pressure on the

stringrdquo as an intrinsic feature of the blues (Oliver 1982 187)8 This project eventually turned into Segu blue the first of two albums that I produced by Bassekou

Kouyateacute and his group Ngoniba (Duraacuten 2007a)9 A version of lsquoPoyirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute can be heard on track 14 of the album Segu blue Another

version by Bassekou can be seen in a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=KA0ErTCqUPo (Accessed 30 March 2013) Other recorded versions oflsquoPoyirsquo by other Malian artists are cited later on in this article

10 Charry states that lsquoall the pieces played by jelis are named and have some kind of story behind them [they] are usually dedicated to a single person such as a great leader warrior or patronrsquo (Charry 2000a145)

11 See Charry Camara and Jensen (2002 305) for discussion of the concept of shame as lsquoa crucial orga-nizing factor in Mande societyrsquo

12 I have been working with musicians in Mali since 1986 primarily as researcher but also as music pro-ducer and broadcaster I have known Bassekou Kouyateacute and his family since the early 1990s but it wasonly in 2006 that I began researching Bamana music following the encounter described above whichculminated in two albums by Bassekou Kouyateacute featuring the ngograveni (see Duraacuten 2007a and 2009) In

Journal of African Cultural Studies 31

1355

1360

1365

1370

1375

1380

1385

1390

1395

addition from 2009 to 2012 I spent long periods in Mali working on a project to document childrenlearning music in griot families in Garana amongst other locations funded by an AHRC BeyondText major grant lsquoGrowing into Musicrsquo (2009ndash2012) Research in Segou during that project has con-tributed significantly to the present article (see httpswwwgrowingintomusiccouk)

13 (Radio interview with Jay Rutledge for Bayern 2 Bayerischer Rundfunk Bavaria) Ndoondo is one ofthe Fulbe genres of professional music see for example Loncke (1997) it is also mentioned in the reci-tation of the lsquoSiege of Jonkolonirsquo (Kesteloot and Dumestre 1975 85) lsquoSeygalarersquo is the title of one ofAli Farkarsquos early recordings on the album Radio Mali WCD 044

14 httpwwwafropoporgmultiinterviewID112Gerhard+Kubik-2007 (Accessed June 24 2012)15 While Kubik is right that Toureacutersquos success paved the way for others in Mali to be labelled as blues artists

(Kubik 1990 196) he is misinformed about aspects of Toureacutersquos life for example he did not spend longperiods of time in Europe or even in Bamako in fact he was well known to all those who knew him assomeone who was openly antipathetic to life in Europe and who chose to spend as much of his time aspossible farming in Niafunke

16 See for example the following websites suggesting connections between the Senegambian Jola akont-ing with the banjo The name akonting is borrowed from the Mandinka kontingo (a variant of ngograveni)httpwwwmyspacecomakonting httpwwwmyspacecomuncleshlomo httpwwwmyspacecombanjorootsblog

17 This is quoted from a line about drinking alcohol recited by Tayiru Banbera and cited later on in thissection

18 The lack of performance contexts for Bamana epics is discussed later on19 An example of this is the song lsquoMbowdirsquo on the album Segu Blue (Duraacuten 2007a) lsquoMbowdirsquo its place in

the Bamana repertoire and its Fulbe origins are discussed later on in this article20 An example of this is the how the jelimuso (female jeli) Bako Dagnon got her name Her paternal grand-

father Bouloukoumba Dagnon took her grandmother Bako Diarra as lsquobootyrsquo in the late 1800s whenpassing through Segu during the wars between the French army and Almami Samory Toureacute BakoDagnon (personal communication 2010)

21 See Conrad (1990 1ndash4) for a concise description of the Bamana of Segu their language social structureand religious beliefs and 13ndash29 for references to the many other published variants

22 Al-Hajj Shaykh Umar Tall founded the Umarian state which ruled until 1890 when Segou fell to theFrench army under General Achinard

23 Tayiru Banbera however recites that this was not the lsquoreal fasa for Darsquo citing instead a chorus lsquorooster ofthe canoe-bow take us forward with you One chief along cannot be a whole armyrsquo (Banbera in Conrad1990 142) lsquoAsk Da for mersquo (Nyininka Da nyininka) has been recorded in many popular variants bymany artists and groups including the Ensemble Instrumental National the Super Biton BanzoumanaSissoko Koni Koumareacute and most recently Bassekou Kouyateacute and Ngoniba For further discussion ofthis song see Conrad (1990 62)

24 The belief in jinns as the source of some kind of divine musical inspiration is also prevalent in Mandethought (Charry 2000a 119) See Kubik (1999 64) for discussion of the lsquodemonicrsquo reputation of bluesmusicians and their use of lsquoevil magicrsquo

25 This speech in French was recorded as part of a radio documentary entitled lsquoBambara Bluesrsquo recordedin and around Segou broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 24March 2007 httpwwwbbccoukprogrammesp005xlv6 (Accessed 1 July 2012)

26 I am grateful to Professor Owen Wright of SOAS for his translations from the original German27 The first kora players to tour the USA in the early 1970s were Alhaji Bai Konte and Jali Nyama Suso

both from the Gambia Jali Nyama was the main informant in the pioneering research on Mandinka koraby Knight (1972 1973)

28 See Duraacuten (1981a and 1981b) Charry (2000 154) Coolen (1982 80ndash81) for further discussion of thistune in the Mandinka kora and Wolof xalam repertoire

29 See Bird (1999 284ndash285) for further discussion of lsquocapturedrsquo tunes For the story of how this tune mayhave originated in the Mande heartland and been brought to (and captured by) Segu see discussion ofthe lsquoriver tunersquo in Duraacuten (2007a)

30 It should be noted that there are other kinds of Bamana music which are not the domain of jeliw such asbara drumming and dancing to the bara a calabash drum and balani (non-jeli xylophones) Theyoverlap with jeli music in that they may also be perceived as lsquowarlikersquo (see Brandes and Maleacute et al1998 track 5) and may reference the Segu Empire but their musicians do not recite the epic whichis always considered the work of the jeliw All these different factors tend to cloud the perception ofwhat actually constitutes Bamana jeli music To complicate the issue several well-known Malian

32 L Duraacuten

1400

1405

1410

1415

1420

1425

1430

1435

1440

lsquoartistesrsquo (a term used in Mali to describe non-jelimusicians) such as Amadou ampMariam Djeneba SeckRokia Traoreacute and the late Lobi Traoreacute base their music on Bamana styles but not the jeli repertoire withits stories of Segu

31 See Strawn (2011) the most detailed study to date of the music of Wasulu hunters32 To hear a recording of Prisonerrsquos Talking Blues go to httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=ZadLjj2KPmE

(Accessed July 24 2012) For more information on the artist and the album see httpthedailygurublogspotcouk201001january-8-robert-pete-willams-prisonershtml (Accessed February 24 2012)

33 For further information on this LP see httpwwwmaliwatchorgSOCIO-ECOHadiRecital_Dah_Monzonhtm (Accessed 10 March 2013)

34 Another version of lsquoBambugu Ncersquo can be heard on Bassekou Kouyateacutersquos album I speak fula entitledlsquoBambugu bluesrsquo A faster version of this tune renamed lsquoCheikhna Dembarsquo can be heard on thealbum New Ancient Strings (see Duran 2011) featuring kora duets It was significantly adopted byORTM (Malirsquos national television station) as their signature tune from c 2000ndash2010

35 Ensemble Instrumental National du Mali LP recording Kunkan Ko 774411 Source httpwrldsrvblogspotcouksearchq=ensemble+national (Accessed 30 December 2012)

36 Versions of this have been widely recorded especially during the 1980s and early 1990s by popular jeli-musow (female jelis) such as Ami Koita and Tata Bambo Kouyateacute to praise the Malian benefactorBabani Sissoko See Schulz (2001 150 181) and Eyre (2000 182ndash183)

37 See the transcription by Rosemary Bock in Conrad 1990 one of the few notations of a Bamana jeli tuneit is an accurate representation of the melody although it is usually played in 128 not 44 as transcribedhere An example of Bakari jan can be found on Segu Blue track 4 lsquoJuru nanirsquo (see Duran 2007a)

38 See for example Le hoddu peulthe Fulani hoddu compact disc (Ocora 2006) See also Hawa DrameacutersquoslsquoMbaoudirsquo on her cassette Syllart SYL 8384

39 Ali Farka Toureacute Red amp Green two compact discs World Circuit WCD 070 Spelling of the track islsquoMrsquobaudyrsquo Originally recorded at Radio Mali in 1988 re-released by World Circuit in 2004

40 Demba Fadiga ndash Camara Production preacutesente Hommage Abrahima Diakite Compact disc41 See Charry (2000a Chapter 5) and Counsel (2009) for discussion of the modernization of Maninka

music42 One of the few recordings of the post-independence years that specifically references the blues is the

Guinean piece entitled lsquoKadia Bluesrsquo which is in minor key and slow triple time It was originally com-posed and recorded by the Guinean guitarist Kanteacute Facelli and later immortalized by the dance bandKeacuteleacutetigui et ses Tambourinis lsquoKadia Bluesrsquo can be heard on the CD The Syliphone Years 1968ndash70(Sternrsquos African records) Kanteacute Facelli and his musical partner Keita Fodeacuteba were incidentally veryinfluential guitarists in the region Ali Farka Toureacute cites Keita Fodeacuteba as the first guitarist he everheard and it could be that some of Toureacutersquos initial ideas about the blues came from here

43 For example Heather Maxwell notes that the music of Wasulu ndash which is pentatonic ndash is lsquojust a smallpart of a larger genre of popular song that is only different in terms of its distinction from jeliya whichuses a heptatonic modersquo (Maxwell 2002 157 my italics)

44 Cf the music of huntersrsquo associations in southern Mali which is also considered to be cegravefoli (Strawn2011 51)

45 At the time of writing in March 2013 there is however no clear indication of how recent political eventsin Mali will affect the once vibrant music scene in the country

46 See Bird (1999 284) The non-enslavement of jeliw has been cited to me by virtually every jeli I havespoken to

47 See for example the playing technique of DiaDia Fadiga and his ensemble httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=kcOiMcGwn6sampfeature=g-vrec (Accessed 1 July 2012)

48 This is my translation from Kestelootrsquos French (no Bamana version of the epic is supplied) where theterm lsquoguitarsrsquo is used but lsquoguitarrsquo has been used as a synonym for the ngograveni by many authors includingFrobenius (1921) so it seems appropriate to reinstate the indigenous term lsquongogravenirsquo

49 Tayiru Banbera accompanied himself on the ngograveni for the performances transcribed by Conrad (seeConrad 1990 35) but when performing for Dumestre a decade earlier he was accompanied byanother ngograveni player called Biton (no surname given) (Dumestre 1979 305)

50 During the making of the album Kulanjan with a group of Malian musicians including BassekouKouyateacute the African-American bluesman Taj Mahal stated lsquoall you do is take these melodies andmake them fall a little differently and you have the bluesrsquo (Taj Mahal personal communication tothe author in the studio while recording the album Kulanjan 1999) See sleeve notes to Taj Mahal ampToumani Diabate Kulanjan compact disc Hannibal HNCD 1444 (1999)

Journal of African Cultural Studies 33

1445

1450

1455

1460

1465

1470

1475

1480

1485

51 Bassekou recited the three in Bamanan A be ni kegravenegrave wele (It recalls new life) A be joli kegravenegrave wele (Itrecalls fresh blood) A be bo kegravenegrave wele (It recalls fresh excrement) For discussion of lsquoJanjunrsquo a songin the Maninka repertoire also considered ritual (see Charry 2000 82ndash83)

52 It can be heard at httpwrldsrvblogspotcouk201001old-lionhtml53 It can be heard at httpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=gbxcAi6T1yE54 See Duraacuten (1995 2000)55 Bambara Blues was the title of one of Lobi Traoreacutersquos albums Compact disc Buda Records 199956 [1971]Musique du Mali Volume 3 Banzoumana Sissograveko Le vieux lion Volume 2 Baumlrenreiter-Musica-

phon BM 30 L 2553 LP disc There are very few other recorded versions of lsquoJonkolonirsquo One listed aslsquoDjonglonirsquo is by the female Bamana singer Koni Coumareacute accompanied on ngograveni recorded in 1976See httpwwwradioafricacomauDiscographiesMalianhtml (Accessed 15 July 2012)Other versions include lsquoJa dugu kolo barsquo by Bamana singer and guitarist Bassi Kouyate on his albumentitled Mali chants des griots bambara and lsquoJonkolonirsquo by Bassekou Kouyateacute on Segu Blue (Duraacuten2007a)

57 I am grateful to Professor Owen Wright of SOAS University of London for translating the German intoEnglish The source of the texts quoted below is Frobenius (1921 106ndash110)

References

Ames David 1955 ldquoWolof Music of Senegal and The Gambiardquo Sleeve Notes Long-Playing DiscsFolkways FE 4462

Arnoldi Mary Jo 1995 Playing With Time Art and Performance in Central Mali BloomingtonIndianapolis Indiana University Press AQ23

Austen Ralph ed 1999 In Search of Sunjata The Mande Epic as History Literature and PerformanceBloomington Indiana University Press AQ24

Bailleul le Pegravere Charles 1996 Dictionnaire Bambara-Franccedilais Bamako Editions DonniyaBa Konare Adam 1987 ldquoLrsquoeacutepopeacutee de Segu Da Monzon un pouvoir geurrierrdquo Pierre-Marcel Favre (col-

lection Centre Europe-Tiers Monde) Paris and Lausanne AQ25Banbera Tayiru 1998 ldquoSegu maana bamanankan na Bamana language edition of the epic of Seguaccord-

ing to Tayiru Banberardquo Recorded and edited with an introduction by David C Conrad transcribedand edited by Soumaila Diakite Kassim Kone and Karim Traore Madison University of Wisconsin-Madison

Belcher Stephen 1999 Epic Traditions of Africa Bloomington Indiana Indiana university PressBird Charles 1972 ldquoBambara Oral Prose and Verse Narratives Collected by Charles Birdrdquo In African

Folklore edited by Richard M Dorson 441ndash477 Indiana University Press AQ26Bird Charles 1999 ldquoThe Production and Reproduction of Sunjatardquo In Search of Sunjata The Mande Epic

as History Literature and Performance edited by Ralph Austen 275ndash296 Bloomington IndianaUniversity Press

Bock Rosemary T 1990 ldquoTheMusicrdquo In A State of Intrigue The Epic of Bamana Segu According to TayiruBanbera edited by David C Conrad 35ndash40 Oxford Oxford University Press AQ27

Brandes Edda and Salia Maleacute (recordings and sleeve notes) 1998 Mali musique bambara du BaninkoBambara music of Baninko Compact disc AIMP LVIII Museacutee drsquoEthnographie Geneva

Brandes Edda and Salia Maleacute (recordings and sleeve notes) 2008 Mali Peul ndash Fulbe Compact discNational Museum of Mali amp Ethnologisches Museum of Berlin

Brett-Smith Sarah C 1994 The Making of Bamana Sculpture Creativity and Gender CambridgeCambridge University Press AQ28

Camara Sekou 2002 ldquoThe dan A Disappearing Musical Instrumentrdquo chapter 4 in Conrad DavidC Somono bala of the upper Niger Leiden Boston Brill

Carney Judith Ann 2001 Black Rice African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas London HarvardUniversity Press

Charry Eric 1994 ldquoThe Grand Mande Guitar Tradition of the Western Sahel and Savannahrdquo The World ofMusic 36 (2) 21ndash61 AQ29

Charry Eric 1996 ldquoPlucked Lutes in West Africa An Historical Overviewrdquo The Galpin Society Journal 493ndash36

Charry Eric 2000a Mande Music Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of WestAfrica Chicago University of Chicago Press

Charry Eric 2000b ldquoMamaya Renewal and Tradition in Manninka Music of Kankan Guinea (1935ndash45)rdquoIn The African Diaspora A Musical Perspective edited by Ingrid Monson 187ndash206 AQ30

34 L Duraacuten

1490

1495

1500

1505

1510

1515

1520

1525

1530

Charry Eric Seydou Camara and Jan Jansen 2002 ldquoThe Mande Praise Song Kayra (Peace) Mande GlobalPerspectivesrdquo Metamorphoses A Journal of Literary Translation 10 (1) 300ndash320

Charters Samuel 1981 The Roots of the Blues An African Search Indiana Indiana UniversityCisse Youssou Tata and Wa Kamissoko 1988 La Grande geste du Mali des origines a la fondation de

lrsquoempire Bamako Karthala-Arsan AQ31Colleyn Jean-Paul and Catherine De Clippel 1998 Bamanaya Unrsquo art di vivere in MaliBamanaya Un art

de vivre au Mali Milano Centro Studi Archeologica Africana AQ32Conrad David C 1990 A State of Intrigue The Epic of Bamana Segu According to Tayiru Banbera Oxford

Oxford University Press AQ33Conrad David C 1999 ldquoReview of Colleyn Jean-Paul amp De Clippel Catherinerdquo 1998 Bamanaya Unrsquo art

di vivere in MaliBamanaya Un art de vivre au Malirdquo Cahiers drsquoEacutetudes Africaines 39 155ndash156pp 1001ndash1004

Conrad David C and Humphrey J Fisher 1983 ldquoThe Conquest that Never was Ghana and theAlmoravids 1076 The Local Oral Sourcesrdquo History in Africa 10 53ndash78

Conrad David and Barbara Frank 1995 Status and Identity in West Africa Nyamakalaw of MandeBloomington Indiana University Press AQ34

Coolen Michael Theodore 1982 ldquoThe Fodet A Senegambian Origin for the Bluesrdquo The Black Perspectivein Music 10 (1) 69ndash84

Coolen Michael Theodore 1984 ldquoSenegambian Archetypes for the American Folk Banjordquo WesternFolklore 43 (2) 117ndash132

Coolen Michael Theodore 1991 ldquoSenegambian Influences on Afro-American Musical Culturerdquo BlackMusic Research Journal 11 (1) 1ndash18

Couloubaly Pascal Baba F 1990 Une Socieacuteteacute rurale Bambara a travers des chants de femmes Ifan-DakarUniversity Cheick Anta Diop AQ35

Couloubaly Pascal Baba F 1993 ldquoThe Narrative Genre among the Bamana of Malirdquo Research in AfricanLiteratures 24 (2) 47ndash60

Counsel Graeme 2009 Mande Popular Music and Cultural Policies in West Africa Griots andGovernment Policy Since Independence Saabrucken VDM Verlag

Courlander Harold and Ousmane Sako 1982 The Heart of the Ngoni Heroes of the African Kingdom ofSegu New York Crown Publishers AQ36

Diallo Mamadou 1988 Esssai sur la musique traditionnelle au Mali France ACCT AQ37Diarra Bakary 2003 Poesie epique et lyrique royaume bamanan de Segou Bamako MaliSoro print color AQ38Diawara Mamadou 1996 ldquoLe griot mande a lrsquoheure de la globalisationrdquo Cahiers drsquoEacutetudes Africaines 144

(XXXVI-4) 591ndash612Diawara Mamadou 1997 ldquoMande Oral Popular Culture Revisited by the Electronic Mediardquo In Readings in

African Popular Culture edited by Karin Barber 40ndash47 London International African Institute AQ39Djata Sundiata A 1997 The Bamana Empire by the Niger Kingdom Jihad and Colonization 1712ndash1920

Princeton Markus Wiener Publishers AQ40Dumestre Geacuterard 1979 La geste de Seacutegou raconteacutee par des griots bambara traduite et eacutediteacute par Geacuterard

Dumestre Paris Armand ColinDuraacuten Lucy 1981a ldquoA Preliminary Study of the Wolof Xalam (with a list of recordings at the BIRS)rdquo

Recorded Sound LXXIX 29ndash50Duraacuten Lucy 1981b ldquoTheme and Variation in Kora Music A Preliminary Study of rsquoTutu Jararsquo as Performed

by Amadu Bansang Jobaterdquo InMusic and Tradition Essays on Asian and Other Musics Presented toLaurence Picken edited by D R Widdess and R F Wolpert 183ndash196 Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press

Duraacuten Lucy 1995 ldquoBirds of Wasulu Freedom of Expression and Expressions of Freedom in the PopularMusic of Southern Malirdquo British Journal of Ethnomusicology 4 101ndash134

Duraacuten Lucy 1996 (author of sleeve notes) Ali Farka Toure ndash Radio Mali Compact disc World CircuitWCD044

Duraacuten Lucy 2000 ldquoWomen Music and the Mystique of Hunters in Malirdquo In The African Diaspora AMusical Perspective edited by Ingrid Monson 137ndash186 Garland New York

Duraacuten Lucy 2007a (producer author of sleeve notes) Segu Blue Compact disc featuring BassekouKouyateacute and Ngoniba OutHere Records OH007

Duraacuten Lucy 2007b ldquoNgaraya ndash Women and Musical Mastery in Malirdquo Bulletin of SOAS 70 (3) 569ndash602Duraacuten Lucy 2009 (co-producer author of sleeve notes) I speak fula Compact disc featuring Bassekou

Kouyateacute and Ngoniba OutHere Records OH013

Journal of African Cultural Studies 35

1535

1540

1545

1550

1555

1560

1565

1570

1575

Duraacuten Lucy 2011 ldquoMusic Production as Tool of Research and Impactrdquo Ethnomusicology Forum 20 (2)229ndash232

Duraacuten Lucy 2013 Director and camera Growing into Music Mali 1 Da kali the pledge to the art of thegriot and Growing into Music Mali 2 Do farala a kan something has been added Musical progressamongst children of griot families DVD SOAS University of London https wwwgrowingintomusiccouk AQ41

Eltis David Philip Morgan and David Richardson 2007 ldquoAgency and Diaspora in Atlantic HistoryReassessing the African Contribution to Rice Cultivation in the Americasrdquo The AmericanHistorical Review 112 (5) 1329ndash1358

Epstein Dena 1975 ldquoThe Folk Banjo A Documentary Historyrdquo Ethnomusicology 19 (3) 347ndash371 AQ42Epstein Dena 1977 AQ43Sinful Tunes and Spirituals Black folk Music to the Civil War University of Illinois

Press AQ44Eyre Banning 2000 In Griot Time An American Guitarist in Mali Philadelphia Temple University PressFrank Barbara 1995 ldquoSoninke garankeacutew and Bamana-Malinkeacute jeliw Mande Leatherworkers Identity and

the Diasporardquo In Status and Identity in West Africa Nyamakalaw of Mande edited by David Conradand Barbara Frank 133ndash150 Bloomington Indiana University Press AQ45

Frank Barbara 1998 Mande Potters amp Leather-workers Art and Heritage in West Africa LondonSmithsonian Institution Press AQ46

Frobenius Leo 1921 Atlantis bd6 Spielmannsgeschichten der Sahel Iena Eugen Diederich ReprintMartin Saumlndig

Frobenius Leo 1925 Dichten und Denken im Sudan Atlantis V Iena Eugen Diederichs AQ47Ganay Solange de 1995 Le sanctuaire Kama blon de Kangaba histoire myths peintures parietales et cer-

emonies septennales Paris KarthalaGibbal Jean-Marie 1993 Genii of the River Niger Chicago Chicago University Press AQ48Gilroy Paul 1993 The Black Atlantic Modernity and Double Consciousness Cambridge Harvard

University Press AQ49Hale Thomas 1998 Griots and Griottes Masters of Words and Music Bloomington Indiana University

Press AQ50Impey Angela 2008 ldquoSound Memory and Displacement Exploring Sound Song and Performance as Oral

History in the Southern African Borderlandsrdquo Oral History 36 (1) 33ndash44Jansen Jan 1999 ldquoAn Ethnography of the Epic of Sunjata in Kelardquo In Search of Sunjata The Mande Epic

as History Literature and Performance edited by Ralph Austen 297ndash311 Bloomington IndianaUniversity Press AQ51

Janson Marloes 2002 The Best Hand is the Hand that Always Gives Griottes and their Profession inEastern Gambia Leiden Research School CNWS AQ52

Johnson JohnW Thomas A Hale and Stephen Belcher eds 1997Oral Epics From Africa Vibrant VoicesFrom a Vast Continent Bloomington Indianapolis Indiana University Press

Keita Cheick M Cheacuterif 1995 ldquoJaliya in the Modern World A Tribute to Banzumana Sissoko and MassaMakan Diabaterdquo In Status and Identity in West Africa Nyamakalaw of Mande edited by DavidConrad and Barbara Frank 182ndash196 Bloomington Indiana University Press

Kesteloot Lilyan 1993 Lrsquoepopee Bambara de Segou Tome 1 avec la collaboration de Amadou Traore ampJean-Baptiste Traore Paris Harmattan

Kesteloot Lilyan ed and trans 1993 Da Monzon de Segou Paris LrsquoHarmattan 1993 2 vols First pub-lished 1974 Paris Fernand Nathan AQ53

Kesteloot Lilyan and Geacuterard Dumestre 1975 La prise de Dionkoloni Episode de lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambararaconteacute par Sissoko Kabineacute recueilli para Lilyan Kesteloot eacutediteacute par Geacuterard Dumestre et lilyanKesteloot avec la collaboration de J-B Traoreacute Paris Armand Colin

Knight Roderic C 1972 Kora Manding Mandinka music of The Gambia sleeve notes Ethnodisc record-ings Tucson Pachart publishing

Knight Roderic C 1973 ldquoMandinka Jaliya Professional Music of the Gambiardquo PhD thesis UCLAKone Kassim 2000 ldquoThe Peoples of the Middle Niger The Island of Goldrdquo (book review) American

Anthropologist 102 (3) 636ndash637Kubik Gerhard 1999 Africa and the Blues Jackson University Press of MississippiLoncke Sandrine (recordings and author of sleeve notes) 1997 Burkina Faso the voice of the Fulbe

Collection du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et du Museacutee de lrsquoHomme Compactdisc Le Chant du Monde CNR 2741079

36 L Duraacuten

1580

1585

1590

1595

1600

1605

1610

1615

1620

Duraacuten Lucy 2011 ldquoMusic Production as Tool of Research and Impactrdquo Ethnomusicology Forum 20 (2)229ndash232

Duraacuten Lucy 2013 Director and camera Growing into Music Mali 1 Da kali the pledge to the art of thegriot and Growing into Music Mali 2 Do farala a kan something has been added Musical progressamongst children of griot families DVD SOAS University of London https wwwgrowingintomusiccouk AQ41

Eltis David Philip Morgan and David Richardson 2007 ldquoAgency and Diaspora in Atlantic HistoryReassessing the African Contribution to Rice Cultivation in the Americasrdquo The AmericanHistorical Review 112 (5) 1329ndash1358

Epstein Dena 1975 ldquoThe Folk Banjo A Documentary Historyrdquo Ethnomusicology 19 (3) 347ndash371 AQ42Epstein Dena 1977 AQ43Sinful Tunes and Spirituals Black folk Music to the Civil War University of Illinois

Press AQ44Eyre Banning 2000 In Griot Time An American Guitarist in Mali Philadelphia Temple University PressFrank Barbara 1995 ldquoSoninke garankeacutew and Bamana-Malinkeacute jeliw Mande Leatherworkers Identity and

the Diasporardquo In Status and Identity in West Africa Nyamakalaw of Mande edited by David Conradand Barbara Frank 133ndash150 Bloomington Indiana University Press AQ45

Frank Barbara 1998 Mande Potters amp Leather-workers Art and Heritage in West Africa LondonSmithsonian Institution Press AQ46

Frobenius Leo 1921 Atlantis bd6 Spielmannsgeschichten der Sahel Iena Eugen Diederich ReprintMartin Saumlndig

Frobenius Leo 1925 Dichten und Denken im Sudan Atlantis V Iena Eugen Diederichs AQ47Ganay Solange de 1995 Le sanctuaire Kama blon de Kangaba histoire myths peintures parietales et cer-

emonies septennales Paris KarthalaGibbal Jean-Marie 1993 Genii of the River Niger Chicago Chicago University Press AQ48Gilroy Paul 1993 The Black Atlantic Modernity and Double Consciousness Cambridge Harvard

University Press AQ49Hale Thomas 1998 Griots and Griottes Masters of Words and Music Bloomington Indiana University

Press AQ50Impey Angela 2008 ldquoSound Memory and Displacement Exploring Sound Song and Performance as Oral

History in the Southern African Borderlandsrdquo Oral History 36 (1) 33ndash44Jansen Jan 1999 ldquoAn Ethnography of the Epic of Sunjata in Kelardquo In Search of Sunjata The Mande Epic

as History Literature and Performance edited by Ralph Austen 297ndash311 Bloomington IndianaUniversity Press AQ51

Janson Marloes 2002 The Best Hand is the Hand that Always Gives Griottes and their Profession inEastern Gambia Leiden Research School CNWS AQ52

Johnson JohnW Thomas A Hale and Stephen Belcher eds 1997Oral Epics From Africa Vibrant VoicesFrom a Vast Continent Bloomington Indianapolis Indiana University Press

Keita Cheick M Cheacuterif 1995 ldquoJaliya in the Modern World A Tribute to Banzumana Sissoko and MassaMakan Diabaterdquo In Status and Identity in West Africa Nyamakalaw of Mande edited by DavidConrad and Barbara Frank 182ndash196 Bloomington Indiana University Press

Kesteloot Lilyan 1993 Lrsquoepopee Bambara de Segou Tome 1 avec la collaboration de Amadou Traore ampJean-Baptiste Traore Paris Harmattan

Kesteloot Lilyan ed and trans 1993 Da Monzon de Segou Paris LrsquoHarmattan 1993 2 vols First pub-lished 1974 Paris Fernand Nathan AQ53

Kesteloot Lilyan and Geacuterard Dumestre 1975 La prise de Dionkoloni Episode de lrsquoeacutepopeacutee bambararaconteacute par Sissoko Kabineacute recueilli para Lilyan Kesteloot eacutediteacute par Geacuterard Dumestre et lilyanKesteloot avec la collaboration de J-B Traoreacute Paris Armand Colin

Knight Roderic C 1972 Kora Manding Mandinka music of The Gambia sleeve notes Ethnodisc record-ings Tucson Pachart publishing

Knight Roderic C 1973 ldquoMandinka Jaliya Professional Music of the Gambiardquo PhD thesis UCLAKone Kassim 2000 ldquoThe Peoples of the Middle Niger The Island of Goldrdquo (book review) American

Anthropologist 102 (3) 636ndash637Kubik Gerhard 1999 Africa and the Blues Jackson University Press of MississippiLoncke Sandrine (recordings and author of sleeve notes) 1997 Burkina Faso the voice of the Fulbe

Collection du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et du Museacutee de lrsquoHomme Compactdisc Le Chant du Monde CNR 2741079

36 L Duraacuten

1580

1585

1590

1595

1600

1605

1610

1615

1620

MacDonald K et al ldquoSorotomo a forgotten Malian Capitalrdquo Archaeology International [Sl] p 52-64oct 2011 ISSN 2048-4194 Accessed March 30 2013 httpwwwaijournalcomarticleviewai131571

Maxwell Heather A 2002 ldquoDestinylsquos Divas Wassolu Singing Music Ideologies and the Politics ofPerformance in Bamakordquo Mali PhD thesis Bloomington Indiana University

Mazzoleni Florent 2011 Musiques modernes et traditionneles du Mali Pantin France Le Castor astralMcNaughton Patrick 1988 The Mande Blacksmiths Knowledge Power and Art in West Africa

Bloomington Indiana University Press AQ54McNaughton Patrick 2008 A Bird Dance Near Saturday City Sidi Ballo and the Art of West African

Masquerade Bloomington Indiana Indiana University Press AQ55Meillassoux Claude 1968 Urbanization of an African Community Voluntary Associations in Bamako

SeattleLondon University of Washington Press AQ56Meillassoux Claude 1991 The Anthropology of Slavery The Womb of Iron and Gold Chicago Athlone

Press AQ57Meintjes Louise 2003 Sound of Africa Making Music Zulu in a South African Studio London Duke

University Press AQ58Monteil Charles 1977 Les Bambara de Segou et du Kaarta Paris Maisonneuve et Larose 1977 First

printed 1924 Notes by Jean Bazin AQ59Newton Robert C 1999 ldquoOut of Print The Epic Cassette as Intervention Reinvention and Commodityrdquo In

In Search of Sunjata The Mande Epic as History Literature and Performance edited by RalphFrank 313ndash327 Bloomington Indiana University Press

Oliver Paul 1970 Savannah Syncopators African Retentions in the Blues New York Stein amp DayOliver Paul 1982 ldquolsquoTwixt Midnight and Day Binarism Blues and Black Culturerdquo Popular Music 2 179ndash

200Pageard Robert Nd Notes sur lrsquohistoire des Bambara de Seacutegou Published by author AQ60Park Mungo 17991983 Travels into the Interior of Africa London ElandAQ61 AQ62Roberts Richard L 1987Warriors Merchants and Slaves The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger

Valley 1700ndash1914 Stanford Stanford University PressSauvageot Serge 1965 ldquoContribution a lrsquohistoire du royaume bambara de Segou (XVIIIe et XIXe siecle)rdquo

Doctor drsquoeacutetat thesisParis University of Sorbonne AQ63Schulz Dorothea E 2001 Perpetuating the politics of praise jeli singers radios and political mediation in

MaliStudien zur Kulturkunde no 118 Koln Rudiger Koppe VerlagStrawn Cullen 2011 ldquoKunfe Ko Experiencing Uncertainty in Malian Wasulu hunterslsquoMusic Performance

and Huntingrdquo PhD Indiana UniversityTamari Tal 2007 ldquolsquoHadyrsquo A Traditional Bardrsquos Praise Song for an Urban Teenagerrdquo Research in African

Literatures 38 (3) 77ndash111 AQ64Taylor F W 1995 Fulani-English Dictionary New York Hippocrene BooksVydrine Valentin 1999 Manding-English Dictionary (Maninka Bamana) Vol 1 St Petersburg Dimitry

Bulanin Publishing HouseZahan Dominique 1974 The Bambara Leiden Brill AQ65

Journal of African Cultural Studies 37

1625

1630

1635

1640

1645

1650

1655

1660

1665